Every election season, political parties arrive carrying promises. Jobs will be created. Youth unemployment will be addressed. Small businesses will be supported. Local economies will grow.
Yet elections come and go, and so many communities have remained trapped in their familiar realities: struggling township businesses, unemployment, crime, weak infrastructure and growing frustration over who meaningfully participates in the economy.
A hard but necessary question is this: why do communities wait for political parties to define what development should look like in the very place they understand better than anyone?
Maybe we’ve been approaching democracy backwards.
Outsourcing our imagination
For too long, too many communities have outsourced their economic imagination to politicians, waiting for manifestos to outline what prosperity should look like in the spaces where they are the experts in economic exclusion.
Yet healthy local economies are rarely built through speeches, rallies or election promises. They are built through participation, negotiation and clearly defined priorities.
What if, before political parties even released their manifestos, communities arrived with manifestos of their own?
Not protest memorandums driven by blind frustration. Not unrealistic wish lists. But serious, practical local economic manifestos rooted in the realities of the places people actually live.
Because perhaps one of the biggest weaknesses in our democracy is that communities often vote emotionally before they vote economically.
We ask who inspires confidence, who carries historical legitimacy and who speaks most convincingly about change.
Buzani is a business consultant and youth empowerment advocate, as well as a founding member of an award-winning SME and the vibrant Mdantsane entrepreneur network Kasi Konversations
But far less attention is given to whether anyone genuinely understands how local economies function or what conditions are needed for them to grow.
Local realities, local solutions
The reality is that local economies are not all the same.
What development means in Mdantsane differs from Khayelitsha. A coastal town cannot rely on the same growth strategy as an inland municipality.
Yet many political promises remain broad, generic and disconnected from the lived realities of communities.
Perhaps before communities demand development, they must first diagnose their own economies.
What money already moves through the community? What sectors have realistic growth potential? What skills are missing? Where does local money go? What opportunities exist for young people beyond unemployment?
Without asking these questions, development easily becomes performance rather than progress.
A serious community economic manifesto should demand at least a few non-negotiables.
*First, communities should demand clear plans for productive local sectors. Economic development cannot simply mean temporary jobs or short-term projects.
Communities must ask what industries can realistically grow locally — whether construction, township retail, agriculture, logistics, tourism, ocean economy, automotive supply chains or informal manufacturing.
*Second, communities should demand real pathways for young people. Youth unemployment cannot continue being treated as a slogan. Where are the apprenticeships? Artisan development programmes? Local business placements? Partnerships between schools, TVET colleges and employers? Young people need pathways into income, not endless motivational speeches.
*Third, communities should demand stronger local enterprise systems. Too often, small business support becomes workshops and certificates while businesses continue struggling to access customers, procurement opportunities, infrastructure and finance.
Communities should ask: how much municipal spending actually develops local businesses?
*Fourth, township economies must finally be treated as real economies rather than welfare spaces.
Townships move millions of rand every month through transport, retail, food, beauty, construction and informal trade. Yet too much of this wealth leaves communities without meaningful reinvestment.
Economic development should include serious plans for township trading infrastructure, logistics, safer commercial spaces and stronger locally owned businesses.
*Finally, communities must demand accountability. Not just promises -- measurements of delivery of promises.
How many sustainable jobs were created? How many businesses survived beyond three years? How many young people moved into stable income opportunities? How much municipal spending stayed local?
Perhaps this is where SA needs a deeper democratic shift.
Communities should not simply wait to receive manifestos.
They should arrive with demands of their own — practical, economically grounded and shaped by local realities.
Because maybe the future of democracy lies not in asking politicians, “What will you do for us” but rather: “Here is the economy we are trying to build. How serious are you about helping us build it?”
Before the manifestos come, perhaps communities should write their own.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.