Establishing Community-Based Enterprises for Sustainable Development of Impoverished Communities: A Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a systematic literature review on the establishment of community-based enterprises in impoverished communities in South Africa. Sustainable enterprising is being regarded as an important panacea for poverty and other socio-economic problems in impoverished communities. For this to happen, however, people in these communities first should analyze the economic conditions of that community, determines its economic needs and then decide what can and should be done to improve the economic conditions in that community, and then move to achieve a communal agreed-upon economic goals and objectives. Meaning through community-based enterprises impoverished communities should utilize their skills in a market niche through a bottom-up approach instead of the popular top-down intervention approaches for their local economic development.