The Centre for Local Economic Development (CENLED) is a centre in the School of Economics (SE) within the College of Business and Economics (CBE) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). CENLED was established in 2008, primarily for capacity building in the local economic development (LED) fields. CENLED also hosts the PASCAL International Observatory (Africa) headquarters.

CENLED has been the driving force in establishing a career path for LED professionals and a professional body for economic development practitioners, the Economic Development Council of South Africa (EDCSA), with the support of the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) of South Africa. CENLED partnered with the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), which supports the professionalisation of LED practitioners, and the IEDC recognises the EDCSA professional designation, Certified Economic Developer (CEcD).

In a recent development in order to expand the foot-print of CENLED and PASCAL (Africa), negotiations took place, between the Centre for Innovations in Regional Economic Development (CiRED) and CENLED in order for CENLED (incorporating PASCAL Africa) to become the Southern African hub of CiRED.

Dr. Fred Olayele of the Canada-based SCARAB, and GEI are collaborating with IEDC and Africa-based CIRED to further promote and entrench local and regional economic development (LRED) as a distinct and self-governing profession in Africa.

CiRED brings together a diverse network of professionals — from public, private and non-governmental organisations — interested in promoting local and regional economic development (LRED) as a distinct and self-governing profession in Africa.

CiRED Africa’s mission is to facilitate cutting-edge innovations in economic development through events, research, evidence-based analysis, training and development services to key stakeholders. The five hubs are:

• Eastern Africa: Mount Kenya University, Kenya
• Western Africa: Baze University Abuja, Nigeria
• Northern Africa: HEM Business School, Casablanca, Morocco
• Southern Africa: CENLED/PASCAL (AFRICA)
• Macaronesia: University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

Dr Marius Venter