Making development work in South Africa

This article focuses on development. It looks at the competing claims of 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' development strategies and at their implementation in post-apatheid apartheid South Africa. On the one hand, international economic advisors propose that development can be achieved in a top-down manner by adopting strict economic principles, which will lead to the benefits of trade and investment supposedly 'trickling down' to the population as a whole. On the other hand, those concerned with local economic development stress that communities need to be assisted and empowered in the process of stimulating growth and development from the bottom up (Potter et al. 1999). The experience of the 'new' South Africa provides a striking example of this paradox, since government policies clearly focus upon both of these seemingly contrasting approaches to development.