Abstract
Local Economic Development (LED) in South Africa is often framed as a participatory and inclusive strategy aimed at addressing unemployment and inequality. However, in practice, participation tends to be procedural rather than transformative. This study investigates the experiences of community participation in LED within Phuthaditjhaba, a peripheral urban centre in the Free State province. Using a qualitative case study approach, the research draws on semi-structured interviews with 15 participants, including municipal officials, non-profit organisations, and community members. The findings reveal that participation is hindered by limited access to information, weak alignment between LED initiatives and local needs, fragmented stakeholder coordination, and persistent service delivery failures. Instead of fostering meaningful engagement, participation is often perceived as symbolic, burdensome, and exclusionary, with minimal impact on decision-making. The study introduces the concept of ‘participation through suffering’ to highlight how communities remain involved in development processes that demand compliance without delivering substantial economic benefits. The article argues that without addressing underlying power dynamics, institutional capacity, and locally rooted planning processes, participatory LED frameworks are likely to reinforce exclusion rather than promote inclusive development.
Keywords
Introduction
‘I participate through suffering’. These words were spoken by a young graduate in Phuthaditjhaba. He completed his degree in 2021 with support from National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and lived at a university residence during his studies. Like many students, he believed education would change his life and open doors to work and independence. Instead, after graduating, he returned home to live with his unemployed family in a small one-bedroom RDP house. There are no job opportunities for him locally, and he is not involved in any economic or development programmes in his community. His days are marked by waiting, sending applications, and depending on others for support. The promise of education has not translated into employment or meaningful participation in local development. His suffering is not only personal, it reflects a wider reality in South Africa, where many young people remain unemployed despite government efforts to expand access to higher education (Seekings and Nattrass, 2015; Statistics South Africa, 2022). In this context, participation becomes something endured rather than experienced as an opportunity. This article argues that community participation in LED in Phuthaditjhaba is experienced not as empowerment but as a form of managed inclusion that reproduces exclusion, a process conceptualised here as ‘participation through suffering’.
Concerns about limited and symbolic participation in LED are not unique to Phuthaditjhaba. National policy frameworks such as the Municipal Systems Act require municipalities to encourage community participation in planning and decision-making (Republic of South Africa, 2000). Similarly, the National Framework for Local Economic Development in South Africa emphasises inclusive, community-driven development. However, studies of South African municipalities show that consultations, public meetings, and ward committees frequently function as formal requirements rather than forums for genuine community input, resulting in weak alignment between municipal actions and local priorities (Mamokhere and Meyer, 2022). These patterns raise important questions about whether LED participation in practice enables meaningful involvement or primarily fulfils formal requirements with little effect on resource allocation or decision-making.
Rooted in a qualitative case study approach, this study examines how participation in LED is characterised in practice in Phuthaditjhaba, focusing on the experiences of municipal actors, intermediary organisations, and community members. Rather than assuming participation as either present or absent, the article analyzes participation as a social practice shaped by power relations, institutional routines, and local histories. This article therefore asks: 1. How is community participation in LED experienced in practice in Phuthaditjhaba? (2) To what extent do participatory LED mechanisms influence decision-making at the local level? In doing so, the study contributes practice-based insights into how participatory LED processes can reproduce exclusion even when participatory policy frameworks are formally in place.
The article proceeds as follows. The next section outlines the historic roots of exclusion, the current economic development activities in Phuthaditjhaba, followed by conceptual foundations of LED and participation in the South African context and subsequently the methodological approach. The findings are then presented thematically, and the article concludes by discussing policy implications for strengthening inclusive and accountable LED practice at the local government level.
The roots of participatory exclusion
The present-day challenges facing LED in Phuthaditjhaba are deeply rooted in the area’s historical exclusion from South Africa’s political economy. During apartheid, Phuthaditjhaba formed part of the QwaQwa homeland, where the state promoted low-wage manufacturing industries as a means of sustaining economic separation while extracting labour under highly exploitative conditions (Pickles & Woods (1992). Industries such as clothing and furniture manufacturing were heavily subsidised, yet workers received low wages and operated under poor working conditions (Bank, 1994). Although these industries provided employment to a large segment of the population, they did not foster sustainable LED or community empowerment.
Following the dissolution of QwaQwa in 1994 and its incorporation into the Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality, the withdrawal of apartheid-era subsidies and rising labour costs led to the closure of factories, with the final garment factories shutting down by 2010 (Marais 2023; Mocwagae and Nel, 2023). Rather than benefiting from reintegration into the national economy, Phuthaditjhaba experienced industrial decline, rising unemployment, and increasing dependency on social grants. The abandoned industrial infrastructure that characterises the town today reflects both historical dispossession and post-apartheid neglect, reinforcing structural economic marginalisation (Pickles and Woods, 1992; Slater, 2002).
While these dynamics highlight the role of institutional constraints and structural inequality, they do not fully account for the historical and epistemic dimensions through which participation is shaped. Decolonial approaches to LED in South Africa extend this critique by examining how participatory processes remain influenced by enduring colonial legacies that shape whose knowledge is recognised and whose voices are legitimised (Ndlovu and Makoni, 2014). From this perspective, exclusion is not only a product of contemporary governance limitations but also of historically embedded power relations that continue to structure participation in subtle yet persistent ways.
This trajectory has produced more than economic marginalisation, and it has shaped local governance and participatory relations. Communities historically positioned as labour reservoirs rather than development actors continue to engage the state primarily as recipients of decisions rather than co-producers of development. As a result, participation in LED initiatives occurs within institutional arrangements marked by weak local capacity, limited trust, and entrenched power imbalances. These historical conditions help explain why participation in Phuthaditjhaba is frequently experienced as consultative and procedural rather than empowering or transformative (Slater, 2002; Marais, 2023).
The current economy
Phuthaditjhaba forms part of the Maluti-a-Phofung (MAP) Local Municipality in the eastern Free State and remains the primary urban centre of the former QwaQwa homeland. The town is spatially and economically shaped by its apartheid-era planning, with limited industrial land, weak infrastructure, and a fragmented local economy. Phuthaditjhaba comprises 13 residential sections, including Setsing, a central business district (CBD) developed in the 1980s, which today occupies approximately 60 hectares (Statistics South Africa, 2024). The CBD accommodates formal retail through shopping complexes and a mall, alongside a dense informal trading economy concentrated along pavements and transport routes.
The limited availability of municipally owned land constrains the spatial expansion of the CBD and restricts opportunities for formal enterprise development (Mocwagae and Nel, 2023). As a result, many residents rely on informal trade as a primary livelihood strategy, reflecting broader patterns of survivalist entrepreneurship in contexts of high unemployment and limited wage employment (Delechat and Medina, 2020). Informal trading in Phuthaditjhaba is not merely supplementary but constitutes a central component of the town’s local economy.
Despite its role as an administrative and service hub, Phuthaditjhaba faces persistent socioeconomic challenges, including high unemployment, rising poverty, deteriorating infrastructure, and limited access to economic opportunities. Maluti-a-Phofung recorded an unemployment rate of 41.8% in 2011 (Statistics South Africa, 2024), with the Integrated Development Plan 2022/2027 (IDP) reporting a further 18% increase in unemployment in subsequent years. Poverty intensity stands at 40.8%, indicating deep and sustained deprivation among large segments of the population (Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality, 2022/2027). These conditions are accompanied by increasing social pressures, including crime, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, and low levels of skills development and education (Seekings and Nattrass, 2015).
At the same time, Phuthaditjhaba exhibits notable forms of institutional and community resilience. The town continues to support key public and social infrastructure, including a regional hospital, municipal offices, a public library, a university campus, shopping centres, five Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, 107 schools, government departments, and major transport ranks (Mocwagae and Nel, 2023). These institutions position Phuthaditjhaba as a service node for surrounding rural settlements and cross-border movement with Lesotho.
Local economic resilience is further reflected in the town’s proximity to the Golden Gate Highlands National Park and the Drakensberg mountain range, which has sustained modest tourism activity despite limited municipal investment (Marais, 2023). However, these economic opportunities remain unevenly distributed and weakly integrated into broader LED strategies. Municipal LED interventions are articulated primarily through the Maluti-a-Phofung Integrated Development Plan, which identifies skills development, artisan training, and SMME support as central mechanisms for addressing unemployment and poverty (Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality, 2026). Initiatives implemented in partnership with the Local Government Sector Education and Training Authority (LGSETA) and Maluti TVET College include training in plumbing, welding, motor mechanics, and body spraying (LGSETA, 2023). The IDP further promotes SMME participation in municipal procurement processes and seeks to improve access to funding and markets. While these initiatives reflect a policy commitment to supporting local economic development, recent research emphasises that their effectiveness depends on coordinated stakeholder engagement and enabling institutional environments (Shongwe et al., 2024). In contexts such as Phuthaditjhaba, where institutional capacity and coordination remain constrained, these conditions are not always fully realised, limiting the developmental impact of such interventions.
However, the effectiveness of these interventions is constrained by governance challenges. Although the Maluti-a-Phofung Special Economic Zone (MAP-SEZ) was established to promote industrialisation and job creation, its operational focus has shifted to Harrismith, approximately 45 km from Phuthaditjhaba, limiting direct benefits for local residents (Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality, 2018). Persistent allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement, including the municipality’s failure to submit audited financial statements since 2015/16, have further undermined development capacity and excluded the municipality from national support programmes such as the Intermediate City Municipalities Programme (CoGTA, 2018; Marais, 2023).
Taken together, these conditions illustrate a local economy characterised by institutional presence without corresponding economic inclusion, and by policy ambition without effective implementation. It is within this context of constrained opportunity, uneven resilience, and limited accountability that questions of participation in LED become particularly salient in Phuthaditjhaba.
Conceptualising participation in local economic development
Participation is a central principle within South Africa’s local governance and development framework, particularly in relation to LED. Policy instruments frame participation as a mechanism through which communities can influence development priorities, contribute local knowledge, and hold institutions accountable (Republic of South Africa, 1998; Republic of South Africa, 2000). Within LED, participation is commonly associated with consultation processes, stakeholder forums, and partnerships intended to align economic initiatives with local needs (Nel and Rogerson, 2005).
However, critical scholarship has long questioned the assumption that participation is inherently empowering. Arnstein’s (1969) ladder of participation highlights the distinction between tokenistic forms of engagement and those that enable genuine citizen power. Subsequent critiques have further problematised participation, demonstrating how participatory spaces can reproduce existing inequalities, depoliticise development, and shift responsibility onto communities without altering underlying power relations (Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Cornwall, 2008). From this perspective, participation may function less as a vehicle for inclusion and more as a technique of governance that legitimises predetermined decisions.
Recent scholarship has extended critiques of participation by examining how it operates within conditions of institutional fragility, economic precarity, and uneven development outcomes. Rather than functioning as a neutral mechanism for inclusion, participation is increasingly understood as being shaped by broader political-economic constraints that limit the scope of local agency (Mokoena and Molepo, 2024). Empirical studies in South Africa show that participatory processes often remain embedded in weak local governance systems, where limited accountability, administrative inefficiencies, and uneven capacity reduce the translation of community inputs into concrete development outcomes (Zondo et al., 2024). In such contexts, participation is frequently structured as consultation rather than co-decision-making, reinforcing existing hierarchies instead of redistributing power.
At the same time, research highlights that in settings characterised by high unemployment, poverty, and constrained livelihoods, participation is not only a political process but also a socio-economic strategy. Community members may engage in participatory spaces to access information, resources, or opportunities linked to local programmes, meaning that participation is often shaped by survival imperatives rather than purely democratic motivations (Xaba and Jili, 2024). This produces uneven forms of inclusion in which some actors can influence development agendas, while others participate symbolically or intermittently depending on their access to networks and institutional channels (Mokoena and Molepo, 2024).
Taken together, these studies reposition participation as a negotiated and context-dependent practice rather than a linear pathway to empowerment. They highlight that even well-intentioned participatory frameworks may generate limited transformation when embedded in structurally unequal and resource-constrained environments. Within LED, this raises important questions about whether participation meaningfully redistributes decision-making power or whether it primarily manages expectations within contexts of constrained economic opportunity.
Scholarship on LED has consistently emphasised the importance of grounding development processes in locally embedded practices and community realities. In the South African context, research shows that while LED is framed as participatory and decentralised, its outcomes are frequently shaped by uneven local capacities and persistent structural inequalities (Binns and Nel, 2002; Rogerson, 2014). Building on this, Rogerson (2010) highlighted that institutional weaknesses and fragmented governance systems often constrain the effectiveness of participatory processes, limiting the extent to which community engagement translates into meaningful influence over development outcomes. As a result, a gap persists between the policy ambition of inclusive participation and the lived experience of communities, where engagement is often procedural and unevenly distributed (Nel and Rogerson, 2016). These insights suggest that participation in LED should be understood not only as a formal governance requirement but as a practice shaped by power relations, access to resources, and socio-economic positioning within local contexts.
Despite these critiques, research on community development shows that participation is widely regarded as a foundational principle of inclusive and sustainable development. When communities are meaningfully involved in development processes, participation can foster empowerment, enabling residents to influence decisions that shape their social and economic environments (Arnstein, 1969; Cornwall, 2008). Empowerment extends beyond consultation, strengthening community capacity to engage with institutions, articulate local priorities, and contribute to collective problem-solving. In contexts of historical marginalisation, participatory approaches are closely tied to capacity building and public sector reform (Chambers, 1994; Cornwall, 2008).
Within LED contexts marked by economic scarcity and institutional weakness, participation is often shaped by unequal access to resources, information, and political networks. Studies of LED in South Africa suggest that participatory processes frequently privilege organised elites, politically connected actors, or those able to navigate bureaucratic systems, while marginalised groups experience limited influence over outcomes (Binns and Nel, 2002; Todes, 2012). Participation thus becomes unevenly distributed, with inclusion in process not necessarily translating into influence over decisions.
Even so, in development practice, community participation translates to community ownership which is a crucial principle for achieving sustainable outcomes. As Lachapelle (2008) argues, a sense of ownership enhances collaboration, strengthens social cohesion, and supports long-term sustainability. By participating, communities can influence policies and initiatives that directly affect their livelihoods, enabling development to occur with them, rather than for them (Gaventa, 2004).
Participation also connects to efforts to confront structural inequality and poverty. By providing space for local voices, participatory development can challenge exclusionary power relations and expand access to resources (Hickey and Mohan, 2004; Mansuri and Rao, 2013). In LED, inclusive participation can foster entrepreneurship, skills development, and local innovation, allowing communities to actively drive economic growth while improving their own socio-economic conditions (Nel and Rogerson, 2016). These potential benefits explain why participatory approaches are so strongly emphasised in contemporary development policy and governance frameworks.
In this study participation is examined in terms of who can participate, how participation is structured, and what forms of influence are made possible through LED processes. Attention is given to how power operates within participatory spaces, shaping whose voices are amplified, whose are marginalised, and how development priorities are defined. By conceptualising participation as practice, the study moves beyond normative assumptions embedded in policy frameworks and instead foregrounds lived experiences of engagement within LED. This approach enables an analysis of how participatory processes in Phuthaditjhaba can simultaneously promise inclusion while reproducing exclusion, particularly for economically marginalised community members and unemployed youth.
Having established the importance of community participation in fostering empowerment, ownership, and structural change, it is crucial to ground this conceptual framework in a concrete representation of participation practices. Figure 1 illustrates Arnstein’s (1969) ladder of participation, a foundational framework that distinguishes between degrees of citizen power, from non-participation to citizen control. By mapping participation onto this ladder, we can better understand how formal mechanisms may fail to deliver substantive power, despite appearing inclusive on paper. In the following sections, we analyse how the experiences of participants in Phuthaditjhaba correspond to various rungs on Arnstein’s ladder, helping us identify where real power gaps emerge. Arnstein’s ladder of participation.Arnstein’s (1969) framework illustrating eight rungs of citizen participation, grouped into non-participation, tokenism, and citizen power, and reflecting increasing degrees of citizen influence in decision-making processes. Note. Adapted from A Ladder of Citizen Participation by S. R. Arnstein, 1969, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35(4), 216–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944366908977225.
Sampling and participants
Purposive sampling was used to select participants with sustained engagement in, or exposure to, LED processes in Phuthaditjhaba. Eligibility criteria included a minimum of 5 years’ residence in the area and direct experience with LED planning or implementation, either as programme designers, implementers, intermediaries, or intended beneficiaries. This approach enabled the study to capture perspectives across different stages of LED implementation rather than policy design alone (Arnstein, 1969; Auditor-General of South Africa, 2023; Ayandibu and Houghton, 2017; Bank, 1994; Binns and Nel, 1999, 2002, Braun and Clarke, 2006, 2012, 2019; Chambers, 1994; Cleaver, 1999; Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), 2018; Cornwall, 2002, 2004, 2008; Delechat and Medina, 2020; Department of Public Service and Administration, 2025; Gaventa, 2004; Gaventa and Cornwall, 2008; Hickey and Mohan, 2004; International Labour Organization (ILO), 2022; Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality, 2026; Rogerson, 2014; Slater, 2002; Yin, 2006).
The final sample comprised 15 participants (coded P1–P15). These included municipal LED officials and councillors involved in programme planning and oversight (n = 5); representatives from non-profit organisations and government-linked agencies engaged in the implementation or funding of LED-related initiatives such as skills development, employment support, and community programmes (n = 5); and community members who had interacted directly with LED initiatives as beneficiaries or excluded participants (n = 5). Community participants included unemployed university graduates, one local business owner selected as a strategic informant, and a social grant beneficiary. The business participant was included not to represent the business sector statistically but to examine how local entrepreneurs interface with LED support mechanisms, procurement processes, and participation spaces in practice. Three community participants were graduates of the University of the Free State QwaQwa Campus, reflecting the growing cohort of educated yet economically marginalised youth in the study area.
This composition allowed for comparative analysis between institutional narratives of LED implementation and the lived experiences of community members positioned at the receiving end of LED interventions.
Data collection
Semi-structured interviews were conducted from November 2023 and March 2024. Interviews were held primarily in English, which was mutually understood by participants and the researcher, despite Sesotho and isiZulu being the dominant local languages. Interviews lasted between 30 and 60 min and were conducted at locations chosen by participants, including homes, offices, and community spaces.
The interview guide collected basic demographic information (age, gender, education, employment status, income, and community role) and explored participants’ experiences of LED implementation. Questions focused on awareness of LED initiatives, modes of participation in specific programmes (such as skills development, employment schemes, and support for small traders), perceptions of influence over decision-making, stakeholder collaboration, and constraints affecting the effectiveness of LED interventions.
This emphasis ensured that discussions moved beyond policy awareness to examine how participation was experienced within implemented LED activities.
Data analysis
All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were reviewed for accuracy prior to analysis. Data were analysed thematically following Braun and Clarke’s (2006, 2012) reflexive thematic analysis approach. This involved familiarisation with the data, iterative coding, and the development of analytically robust themes that captured patterns across participant accounts.
Four interrelated themes emerged from the analysis: 1. Participation without decision-making influence in LED implementation. 2. Misalignment between LED policies, programmes, and community priorities. 3. Service delivery and resource constraints shaping LED outcomes. 4. Fragmented stakeholder collaboration and the limited role of non-profit organisations.
Data saturation was reached when additional interviews no longer yielded new analytical insights (Braun and Clarke, 2019).
Ethical considerations
Ethical clearance was obtained from the University of the Free State Research Ethics Committee. All participants were informed about the purpose of the study and their right to withdraw at any stage without penalty. Written informed consent was obtained prior to participation. To protect confidentiality, pseudonyms were used, and all identifying information was removed from transcripts and publication.
Results
Demographic characteristics of participants (n = 15).
Note. Data collected through semi-structured interviews with participants involved in LED in Phuthaditjhaba (2024).
This study contributes to debates on LED by examining not whether participation occurs, but how it is structured and experienced in practice in Phuthaditjhaba, a peripheral urban centre in South Africa’s Free State province. While LED literature consistently positions community participation as central to inclusive development (Mocwagae and Nel, 2023; Turok and Scheba, 2020), the findings demonstrate that participation in Phuthaditjhaba operates primarily at a procedural level, with limited influence over substantive economic decision-making. This confirms Arnstein's (1969) seminal argument that participatory spaces can remain tokenistic when power is not meaningfully redistributed. Yet the depth of exclusion documented here where citizens describe ‘participation through suffering’ and being ‘the third party in LED initiatives’ extends Arnstein’s ladder of participation by revealing how formal compliance with participatory requirements can mask profound disempowerment in contexts of systemic municipal dysfunction. This raises a critical question: if participation is technically present yet experientially absent, what function does it serve for those who maintain the illusion?
How information becomes a tool of marginalisation
The findings reveal a striking disconnect between institutional claims of participation and lived realities of exclusion. Municipal official P9 asserted that ‘the community, the SMMEs and the Entrepreneurs inform our policies, so they are our backbone of LED initiatives’, yet this narrative of inclusive governance stands in stark contrast to community experiences. Participant P1’s simple declaration ‘No, I am not involved in any decision-making regarding LED. We are not called, and we do not participate’ captures the reality for the majority of respondents. This disjuncture suggests that participation has become a performance staged for legitimacy rather than a practice of power-sharing, consistent with Cornwall’s (2008) critique of participatory policy-making vulnerabilities to manipulation by dominant actors. But how does this performance persist when communities clearly recognise their exclusion?
Information poverty emerges as the primary mechanism sustaining this illusion. P2 noted that ‘only a few people in the community know what LED is. They cannot participate in something they don’t know’, while youth participant P5 observed: ‘I was born and raised here but have never heard of a community meeting to implement LED initiatives’. The municipality’s reliance on outdated communication modalities such as newspaper advertisements, loud hailers, and ward councillor announcements systematically excludes younger, digitally connected demographics, mirroring findings from the Greater Tzaneen Municipality where traditional communication channels similarly failed to reach youth populations (Mamokhere and Meyer, 2022). Municipal official P14’s dismissal of youth engagement preferences (‘they prefer TikTok and Facebook instead’) while simultaneously failing to utilise these platforms for LED communication reveals what Cornwall (2002) terms ‘adverse incorporation’ the strategic deployment of participatory rhetoric to maintain exclusionary structures. This is not communication failure but communication design: by ensuring information does not reach those who need it most, the municipality secures decision-making autonomy while maintaining formal compliance with participatory requirements. The implications are profound when P5 describes ‘participation through suffering’ as ‘collecting grants, then buying from the existing businesses’, we see how economic precarity itself becomes the only form of ‘engagement’ available to the poor. This aligns with Gaventa and Cornwall’s (2008) observation that poorly implemented participatory mechanisms in the Global South can decrease legitimacy by creating perceived inequalities in access. But if communities cannot access information about LED, how can they hold the municipality accountable for its failures?
The IDP as an empty ritual
The Integrated Development Plan (IDP), constitutionally mandated as the primary vehicle for participatory local governance, emerges from this study as the institutional embodiment of this accountability gap. Municipal participant P15 described an idealised process: ‘We do the IDP. We go to the people and hear their concerns and what they need... we will make them a shopping centre and that will create jobs’. This narrative of responsive planning aligns with the Batho Pele principles of people-centred governance (Department of Public Service and Administration, 2025). Yet community member P2’s blunt assessment ‘I will tell you the truth. I am not involved in any way’ reveals the IDP’s operational reality as a technocratic exercise disconnected from community knowledge. When P11 estimates community participation at ‘only 10%’ and describes involvement confined to ‘being a program beneficiary’, the gap between participatory promise and reality becomes measurable.
This finding resonates with recent research documenting how IDP processes across South African municipalities fail to translate into effective service delivery due to insufficient genuine engagement, inadequate resource allocation, and lack of planning capacity among officials (Mamokhere & Meyer, 2022, 2023; Musyoka, 2010). However, the Phuthaditjhaba case extends this critique by revealing the temporal dimension of exclusion: consultation occurs during IDP drafting followed by months of ‘implementation silences’. P5’s observation that ‘we are at the receiving end and usually receive less than we deserve, probably because of corruption’ captures how this episodic organisation of participation produces learned helplessness rather than empowerment, consistent with Cleaver (1999) analysis of how participatory mechanisms can decrease legitimacy when communities perceive unequal access. The IDP thus functions not as a tool of democratic planning but as what Cornwall (2002) identifies as ‘adverse incorporation’, a mechanism that absorbs community discontent into bureaucratic process without threatening existing power structures. This pattern mirrors findings from the Greater Tzaneen Municipality, where IDP participation similarly failed to yield tangible service delivery improvements despite constitutional mandates (Mamokhere and Meyer, 2023). Yet if the IDP fails to connect policy to lived reality, what happens to the organisations and individuals positioned between the state and the community?
NPOs operating in the dark
The study reveals a landscape of stakeholder engagement where NPOs, potentially crucial mediators between communities and the state, instead operate in conditions of profound isolation. Participant P7 articulated this disconnection with striking honesty: ‘I do not know of any program in my area... I would be lying if I say I do’. This perception of abandonment contrasts sharply with municipal narratives of partnership. The funding organisation participant P6 identified the systemic source of this isolation: ‘Many organisations may be targeting similar goals without being aware of each other’s efforts’, pointing to the absence of institutional mechanisms for coordination.
This fragmentation reflects broader structural challenges in LED implementation identified by Mocwagae and Nel (2023), where fragmented stakeholder engagement undermines collective impact and accountability. Yet, the Phuthaditjhaba case reveals how coordination failures are experienced at the community level as institutional neglect. When NPOs lack information about municipal LED activities, and municipalities fail to map or engage with civil society initiatives, the result is not merely inefficient duplication but the reproduction of exclusion. This aligns with research from the Northern Cape and Western Cape demonstrating that weak coordination between government and civil society fundamentally limits LED (Ayandibu and Houghton, 2017; Nel and Rogerson, 2016). P6’s call for ‘a differentiated approach to financing, planning, and support’ to avoid duplication highlights the cruel irony that in a context of severe resource constraints, the absence of coordination produces waste while communities perceive abandonment. The NPOs’ inability to bridge the gap between municipal policy and community need leaves residents with no alternative channels for voice or redress, consistent with Zondo and Ncube’s (2022) findings on how governance fragmentation constrains SMME development in under-resourced municipalities. But if both formal participatory mechanisms and civil society mediation fail, how do communities experience the material consequences of this governance vacuum?
The collapse of service delivery
The findings document a municipal system in advanced dysfunction, where service delivery failures constitute structural barriers to economic participation that compound the exclusion already established through information poverty and ritualised consultation. Participant P7’s observation that ‘everything in this town is falling apart, including the lights, the buildings, the roads, and the service, is not there’ captures the physical manifestation of governance failure. This is not inconvenience but economic sabotage when ‘electricity can go down for more than a month’ (P11), small businesses cannot operate, stock is lost, and investment becomes impossible. These conditions directly undermine the Phuthaditjhaba Industrial Park revitalisation efforts, where despite infrastructure investments, unreliable municipal water and electricity supply constrain business sustainability (Marais, 2023; Mocwagae and Nel, 2023).
Municipal official P14 acknowledged this reality with unusual candour: ‘Because the municipality is broke, they can’t maintain any source of water, electricity, or infrastructure... If the municipality fails to meet its basic needs, it cannot support small businesses and LED projects without external funding’. This admission reveals the ‘issue of dependency’ that characterises LED in fiscally distressed municipalities a dependency on external funding that is neither ‘sustainable nor reliable’. This aligns with the Auditor-General South Africa's (2023) classification of 66 South African municipalities as dysfunctional, exhibiting difficulties across administration, governance, financial management, and service delivery. For entrepreneurs, these conditions translate into what P7 describes as ‘running from pillar to post’ bureaucratic processes that drain resources until applicants ‘give up or run out of funds’. The paradox of unoccupied business premises alongside aspiring entrepreneurs unable to access space points to administrative barriers that reproduce historical patterns of exclusion identified by Radebe (2019) and Tsotetsi and Omodan (2022). When P7 notes that ‘there are unoccupied premises, and there are many people I know that need space to start their businesses, but they will end up giving up’, the failure of LED to address structural barriers becomes tangible in lost enterprises and uncreated jobs. Yet if the physical and administrative infrastructure for economic participation has collapsed, what happens to those who have invested in education as a pathway out of poverty?
The crisis of educated unemployment
The experiences of educated unemployed youth in Phuthaditjhaba reveal the ultimate contradiction of LED in contexts of systemic failure: human capital accumulation without economic opportunity. Participant P5, in the 26–33 age category, represents a generation that has accessed education often through state support yet remains economically marginalised. The frustration expressed having ‘never heard of a community meeting to implement LED initiatives’ despite being ‘born and raised here’ risks producing long-term political disaffection that threatens social stability.
This finding is significant given national trends: graduate unemployment in South Africa has risen sharply from 5.8% in 2008 to 11.8% in 2023, with young African graduates experiencing the most severe employment declines (Statistics South Africa, 2024). The Free State province recorded unemployment rates of 38% in 2024, with youth unemployment significantly exceeding national averages (Statistics South Africa, 2024). In Phuthaditjhaba, where LED initiatives represent the primary state response to unemployment, the inability to engage educated youth in meaningful economic activity represents a critical policy failure. The circularity of P5’s ‘participation through suffering’ ‘collecting grants, then buying from the existing businesses’ reveals how economic exclusion becomes self-perpetuating: the educated poor consume from the established economy while being denied entry into productive activity. This challenges LED frameworks that assume linear pathways from education to employment, revealing instead a stagnant economy where credentials do not translate into opportunity. The implications extend beyond individual failure to systemic crisis: when state investment in education produces graduates who remain economically excluded, the social contract itself frays, consistent with warnings from the International Labour Organization (2022) that South Africa’s unemployment crisis constitutes a threat to political stability. But what does this accumulation of failures information exclusion, ritualised consultation, fragmented governance, service collapse, and educated unemployment mean for our understanding of LED as a development strategy?
Conclusion
This study examined how community participation in LED is enacted in practice within Maluti-a-Phofung Municipality. While LED frameworks formally position participation as central to inclusive and pro-poor development, the findings demonstrate that participation in Phuthaditjhaba functions largely as a procedural and administrative exercise rather than as a mechanism for shared decision-making or economic inclusion. Similar to observations in participatory governance literature, community members are invited into consultative spaces, yet their involvement rarely translates into influence over priorities, resource allocation, or implementation outcomes (Arnstein, 1969; Cornwall, 2008).
By foregrounding the lived experiences of participation, the study reveals a persistent disjuncture between institutional narratives of inclusion and community-level realities of exclusion. Participation is experienced not as empowering but as burdensome and extractive requiring time, compliance, and engagement without corresponding material or economic benefits. In this sense, LED participation operates less as a pathway to local economic empowerment and more as a mechanism for managing expectations and legitimising predetermined development agendas, a pattern widely noted in critiques of participatory development practice (Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Hickey and Mohan, 2004).
The study contributes to LED scholarship by demonstrating how participatory processes may reproduce exclusion when underlying power imbalances remain unaddressed. Rather than treating participation as inherently transformative, the findings underscore the importance of examining how participation is structured, whose knowledge is prioritised, and who ultimately benefits from LED interventions (Cleaver, 1999; Gaventa, 2004). This shifts analytical attention from participation deficits to participation dynamics, highlighting participation as a contested political process rather than a neutral technical tool.
For LED practice, the findings emphasise the need to move beyond consultative compliance toward participatory arrangements that enable communities to meaningfully shape economic priorities, access opportunities, and hold institutions accountable. Without such a shift, LED risks remaining an exercise in symbolic inclusion, where communities continue to ‘participate through suffering’ as development is done to them rather than with them undermining the transformative intent of LED policy and perpetuating local economic marginalisation (Binns and Nel, 1999; Mansuri and Rao, 2013).
The findings suggest that participation in Phuthaditjhaba frequently takes the form of what this article conceptualises as participation through suffering, where communities are expected to engage in development processes that demand time, compliance, and presence but offer little meaningful influence over decisions or economic opportunities. Therefore, communities are encouraged to attend meetings, share ideas, and engage with development planning processes, yet their contributions rarely translate into substantive influence over economic decisions. Participation will therefore become a mechanism through which communities remain engaged in development discourse while structural constraints and institutional power asymmetries remain largely unchanged. To illustrate this dynamic, Figure 1 presents Sherry Arnstein’s (1969) ladder of participation, a classic framework that maps different levels of citizen power in decision-making. By examining the experiences in Phuthaditjhaba through this lens, we can see how formal participatory processes often remain at the lower rungs, limiting true empowerment.
Participation in this context does not fail because it is absent, but because it is structured in ways that sustain exclusion while maintaining the appearance of inclusion. As such, participation becomes a mechanism through which communities remain engaged in development discourse without gaining meaningful influence over economic decision-making. Without a fundamental shift in how participation is designed and implemented, LED risks reinforcing, rather than transforming, existing patterns of marginalisation.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the guidance and support of Professor Lochner Marais and Professor Grey Magaiza. This work is lovingly dedicated to my beloved children, Yenziwe, Akwandze, and Lwandle, whose love and presence inspired every step of this journey. I also extend my sincere gratitude to my family for their unwavering encouragement, patience, and support throughout this research process. Special thanks to boMapopo Rampane.
Ethical considerations
Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the University of the Free State, Qwaqwa Campus. Approval date: 31 July 2023. Ethical clearance number: UFS-HSD2023/1344.
Author contributions
The author, Bongokuhle Saselihle Khumalo, was solely responsible for the conceptualisation, research design, data collection, data analysis, and writing of the manuscript.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data Availability Statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the author upon reasonable request.
Research project title (ethics reference)
Pro-poor Local Economic Development.