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legislation gaps and strong urban bias undermined the expected outcomes of these policies.
This lack of skilled and experienced staff has also hindered socio-economic development in
the local municipalities (perret, 2007).
During 1998, while the government was shifting from RDP to Growth, Employment and
Redistribution (GEAR) (perret, 2007) as a macro-economic policy framework and to a neo­
liberal line, the White Paper on Local Government established the way out ofthe transitional
phase. Between 1998 and 2000, a series ofActs follow the white paper on local government,
setting up the necessary legislation framework for implementation: the Municipal Structures
Act (which mostly sets up the different categories of municipalities), the Municipal Systems
Act (which defines processes and operational features such as IDPs), and the Municipal
Demarcation Act 5 (which sets up the Demarcation Board), and the Municipal Financial
Management Bill.
Before the general election of 1999, certain civil society organisations (e.g. Rural
Development Initiative) urged the government to address specifically and explicitly the rural
development issues. After the general election, the integrated sustainable rural development
strategy was drafted, drawing a lot from preliminary work studies/projects done within Land
Affairs and other key line Departments after rural development framework (RDF). The
Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP) (Perret, 2007) is presented as
a spatial development framework, which tries to accommodate environmental, social and
economic agendas. It is designed to provide national and provincial access to the local level,
since many local municipalities are ill-equipped to play a significant role in development.
However, lSRDP is not aiming at replacing or duplicating any local initiative. It is supposed
to fit into the local IDPs, and to be driven by local municipalities (Perret, 2007).
• A six-year programme of LED-support for the Province of KwaZulu-Natal has
been es