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On Regional and Rural Development, our aim is to make a positive impact on the South African economy on a sustainable basis, through funding projects that ensure that we improve the fortunes of our provinces, more so the economically disadvantaged ones.
One of the key challenges facing South Africa is unemployment, our funding is geared at expanding production capacity and supporting new businesses as they have the potential to create and save thousands of jobs.
We partner entrepreneurs to make a difference, with rural development being a key focus area. We recognise the importance of a dynamic private sector in securing and stimulating rapid and sustainable economic growth, creating employment and reducing poverty.
How the IDC tackles poverty alleviation
We do this through the proactive involvement of communities. We work with a number of strategic partners in this regard, including local development agencies and municipalities, to identify potential opportunities that are localised and have the potential to galvanise the communities in terms of involvement.
Our risk capital management facility makes concessional funds available, to ensure that we support those communities that have access to land or farming rights, where previously they might not have had the opportunity to participate in local economic development.
The IDC also supports unique social entrepreneurship initiatives such as the Nguni Cattle Project, where communities are offered Nguni cattles as part of their sustainable farming ventures. In this way we involve local communities, particularly in rural areas.
Initiatives in the pipeline for 2009 to address poverty, specifically in South Africa
We are looking at various initiatives such as increasing access to finance whereby we can lend through intermediaries to reach micro-enterprises. Discussions are underway with possible technical partners who will help us provide micro-finance solutions. We are also looking at the co-operative funding model, more so in the farming sector where we see the model making a significant difference amongst emerging farmers.
On the Corporate Social Investment front, we continue to look for projects that have a wide socio-economic impact leading to self-sufficiency and commercial return in the long run.
To address the history of skewed economic development, characterized by poor provinces, we are embarking on regional development projects as identified by the government in its Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP) and Urban Renewal Programme (URP). We are identifying projects in these nodes and conducting feasibility studies in order to bring these to the implementation stage.
Through our Agency Development Unit we are increasing the roll-out of development agencies in priority areas to help with small town revitalization. The objective of the unit is to work closely with municipalities to spearhead local economic development opportunities by unlocking assets and facilitating investment into the local economy.
We are proactively looking for projects that are sustainable in the long term, a good example is in the field of infrastructure development. Through strategic partnerships with other DFIs, the IDC is examining potential major projects including roads, water and energy, in order to meet South Africa’s infrastructure needs in the long term. We are also providing more capital into the marketplace to meet such project needs.
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