The Centre for Local Economic Development (CENLED [1]) is a centre in the School of Economics (SE [2]) within the College of Business and Economics (CBE [3]) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ [4]). CENLED was established in 2008, primarily for capacity building in the local economic development (LED [5]) fields. CENLED also hosts the PASCAL International Observatory (Africa) [6] 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 [7]), with the support of the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti [8]) of South Africa. CENLED partnered with the International Economic Development Council (IEDC [9]), which supports the professionalisation of LED practitioners, and the IEDC recognises the EDCSA professional designation, Certified Economic Developer (CEcD [10]).
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 [11]) 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 [12], and GEI [13]are collaborating with IEDC and Africa-based CIRED [14] 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 [15], Kenya
- Western Africa: Baze University Abuja [16], Nigeria
- Northern Africa: HEM Business School [17], Casablanca, Morocco
- Southern Africa: CENLED/PASCAL (AFRICA)
- Macaronesia: University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, [18] Canary Islands
Dr Marius Venter