Catherine Bassage Current organisational affiliation
Postgraduate student, University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Profile Catherine Bassage has completed an Honours Degree in Economics and is currently engaged in research, with a view to registering for a Masters Degree in Economics. Catherine and her husband operate a Shoe Manufacturing business in KZN. Being at the forefront of Local Business, she has a firsthand knowledge of the adversities that communities face and recognizes the role of LED in empowering individuals.
Bakhetsile Dlamini (‘BK’) Current organisational
affiliation Co-ordinator, LED Young Researcher Programme, UKZN Graduate School of Business and Leadership, Regional and Local Economic Development Capacity Building Initiative.
Profile Bakhetsile is currently pursuing her Masters of Commerce in Leadership Studies at UKZN, focusing on LED and
partnerships. Her research interests are: social capital and LED; finding new ways for implementing Integrated
Development Plans (IDPs) and the importance of skills development within the informal economy. Her current research focus is on how trust and the building of relationships can be influential to the success of LED initiatives within local municipalities.
Timothy Hadingham (‘Tim’) Current organisational
affiliation Research manager, City of Cape Town, South Africa Profile Tim Hadingham is an economic development practitioner
with a passion for building the capacity of communities and business leadership with respect to economic development processes. He believes strongly that the wisdom of locals always exceeds the knowledge of experts. Tim was a team member on the GTZ (now GIZ) Local Economic Development project until 2010 and has worked across in Eastern and Southern Africa, helping locals articulate what they know and to apply it to the development of their economies. Current research interests include value chains in the informal economy, and approaches to the spatial targeting of economic interventions for maximum impact.
Local Economic Development (LED) in the Agricultural Sector
Dr Jennifer Houghton Current organisational
affiliation Lecturer, LED, Regional and Local Economic Development Capacity Building Initiative, Graduate School of Business and Leadership, UKZN.
Profile Jennifer has a PhD in urban geography, focusing on public private partnerships as a mechanism for the production of neoliberalism at the city scale. Her current research interests are the diffusion and localization of neoliberalism in cities of the South, public private partnerships as an economic development mechanism, discourses of economic
development, the role of place in economic development and special economic zones.
Dr Sylvia Kaye Current organisational
affiliation Lecturer and Supervisor, University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Profile Sylvia‘s research interests focus on the strengthening of women-owned small businesses through the integration of training with external support programmes. Social
entrepreneurship is another research area: this concept, while new, is perceived as having the potential of providing livelihoods and much needed services to communities. In 2003, she joined the University of KwaZulu-Natal in what was then the Adult Learning/Community Development School. Sylvia is now lecturing in Conflict Resolution/Peace Studies as well as supervising Masters and PhD students.
Prof. Darma Mahadea Current organisational
affiliation Associate Professor in Economics, School of Economics and Finance, University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Profile Darma has published extensively in the area of Development Economics and Entrepreneurship. He has also been a visiting lecturer at the University of Lubumbashi in the DRC and Gavle University in Sweden. His area of research is in Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs), entrepreneurship, poverty, economic development and the economics of happiness.
Nolwazi Melissa Hlengiwe Mthembu Current organisational
affiliation Young researcher, LED Young Researcher Programme, UKZN Graduate School of Business and Leadership, Regional and Local Economic Development Capacity Building Initiative.
Profile Nolwazi Mthembu holds a Bachelor of Social Science degree in Psychology and Marketing as well as a B Com Honours degree in Marketing Management. She is currently
registered for a Masters of Commerce degree in Leadership at UKZN, with a focus on Local Economic Development (LED). Her current research interests are around entrepreneurship development, social entrepreneurship development and support, capacity building and community engagements in developing small towns and rural
communities.
Jean Reinhardt Lohbauer (‘Reinhardt’) Current organisational
affiliation Business Consultant, Lohbauer and Associates.
Profile After a career in the corporate world, Reinhardt has spent the past 17 years as business consultant, interspersed with buying and managing small businesses. His work in Austria exposed him to SME development. He realized that South African small businesses could benefit from what he had learnt, which culminated in his current research. Reinhardt believes that the right environment will always increase the success rate of any current and potential enterprise
development; that stakeholder development should adhere to regional and local economic development, and that private sector initiatives need to take a leading role in identifying and supporting enterprise development at all levels. In this regard he has worked towards incorporating SME owners in development and on bringing stakeholders together to ensure viability of the enterprise. He has incorporated research and applied paradigms on systems thinking and enterprise development to ensure the correct supportive environment within which an SME‘s chances of success are improved.
Christiaan De Wet Schoeman (‘De Wet’) Current organisational
affiliation
Head of the University of Stellenbosch Business School Executive Development (USB-ED) Centre for Applied Entrepreneurship.
Profile De Wet Schoeman currently heads up the USB-ED Centre for Applied Entrepreneurship at the University of Stellenbosch.
The Centre focuses on different initiatives to promote entrepreneurship in South Africa, particularly in rural areas.
This includes youth development, community entrepreneur development initiatives as well as LED development. The Centre also supports research activities under the broad theme of the creation of entrepreneurial eco-systems. De Wet has more than ten years of experience in the training and development of entrepreneurs. He holds an MSc degree (Psychology) from the University of the Free State.
Anette Scoppetta Current organisational
affiliation Head of the Work and Opportunities Unit, Centre for Social Innovation, Vienna.
Profile Anette Scoppetta is Head of the Work and Equal
Opportunities Unit and Board Member at the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) in Vienna, where she also supervises the Coordination Unit of Austrian Territorial Employment Pacts (TEPs) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)‘s Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Forum on Partnerships and Local Governance. Anette has worked extensively on labour market and employment policies, regional economic development and projects in the field of demographic
Local Economic Development (LED) in the Agricultural Sector
change, new forms of governance, social dialogue,
participation and partnerships that focus on employment and socio-economic development issues. From 2009-11 she was responsible for project management of the Community of Practice on Partnership in the European Social Fund.
Leda Stott
Current organisational affiliation
Director, International Master in Sustainable Development and Corporate Responsibility (IMSD), Escuela de
Organización Industrial (EOI) Business School, Madrid, Spain.
Profile Leda Stott is a specialist in multi-stakeholder collaboration and development issues. Currently Director of the
International Master in Sustainable Development and Corporate Responsibility at the EOI Business School in Madrid, she teaches, trains and conducts research related to partnerships with a variety of academic institutions and international agencies. Leda was the content expert for the Community of Practice on Partnership in the European Social Fund between 2007 and 2011 and is the author of the
European Commission's EQUAL Guide for Development Partnerships (2004) and How European Social Fund Managing Authorities and Intermediate Bodies Support Partnership (2008).
Local Economic Development (LED) in the Agricultural Sector