The KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Local Economic Development (LED) support programme was a six-year programme designed to support the provincial Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDT) and a broad range of other stakeholders to more effectively implement LED that achieves equitable economic growth in the Province.

The core problem to which the programme responded was the major market failures and human and institutional capacity limitations that operate to perpetuate the exclusion of the majority population from the mainstream economy. The programme supported LED initiatives from provincial and local actors, initially focusing on four selected ‘learning areas’.

The EC Framework contract was designed to:

• Build sustainable partnerships between LED stakeholders in four ‘learning areas’;
• Strengthen and cohere the enabling environment for investment and enterprise development, skills development, HIV/Aids and TB mitigation, and developmental local government around projects that promote economic growth and poverty reduction;
• Promote learning, knowledge exchange and replication; 
• Establish effective, adaptable and innovative LED management functions at the ‘learning areas’ and provincial level.