Programs

Economic Development

RDAFN's Focus - Delivering Economic Development

In broad terms, a community's economic development revolves around the generation of sufficient income to sustain an attractive quality of life for the community's residents.

Governments have a role in stimulating, facilitating and inducing economic development where this is necessary to overcome barriers or because of some other form of market failure.

Governments do this by among other things:

building or facilitating needed infrastructure
removing trade barriers
providing policies that encourage investment
providing business extension services
providing or facilitating training

Regional development boards are an integral part of this.

Their role is very much at the delivery end. They are also the eyes and ears of other arms of government. To this end they play a vital role in ensuring that all arms of government understand the impact of government policies at the coal face. They are the ones who are best able to translate the needs and aspirations of local communities to other arms of government. They are the ones who understand with a real sense of empathy the mechanics of economic development as the cornerstone of building sustainable communities.

While economic development impacts on and derives from all sectors of the economy, economic development bodies such as regional development boards concern themselves principally with industry sectors commonly referred as secondary and tertiary. These sectors are also characterised as manufacturing or services. Primary industries such as pastoralism, farming or mining have traditionally been outside of the province of regional development boards and instead are handled by their own government agency. In South Australia these are, Primary Industries and Resources, South Australia and also by Natural Resource Management. Regional development boards do however interact closely with participants in primary industries in a number of important and positive ways. These include providing linkages between manufacturers and service providers and miners, pastoralists and others to provide value to both parties. Boards assist with the development of a viable, efficient and reliable service industry, appropriately trained and equipped, to support primary producers in a timely fashion. They also foster the development of infrastructure and support the development and maintenance of sustainable communities, in or around which primary producers and their families live.

Infrastructure and Sustainable communities

In concert with our local government stakeholders, RDAFN has a role as the primary deliverer of economic development services to support sustainable communities across the region. In pursuit of this role, RDAFN has supported with other stakeholders community development plans and will work with the communities and their stakeholders to implement those actions within RDAFN's areas of responsibility arising from these plans.

Infrastructure is an important vehicle for economic development. Northern South Australia is characterised by a very fragile and harsh environment, vast distances, small and isolated communities with low or non-existent rate bases. The existing infrastructure to support economic development in northern South Australia has significant shortcomings across the board. The unique characteristics of northern South Australia

can make it extremely difficult to develop a viable case for commercially funded infrastructure. The community need however is very strong. Sound infrastructure is an essential imperative for sustainable communities. There are currently significant shortcomings in the areas of:

Roads � both major arterial roads and maintenance of rural roads which link in particular the regions tourism and mining activities
Basic tourism infrastructure including toilets and signs
Water � both quality and quantity throughout the region to support sustainable communities and industry development including tourism and mining
Communications � access to the equivalent standard of information technology and communications including satellite and broadband internet access is essential across the region to support the growth of the regions small business community Waste Management � there is a pressing need for an holistic approach to waste management across northern South Australia
Power � access to a continuous adequate and secure source of power across northern South Australia is a necessary part of sustainable communities and effective industry development.

South Australian Government established an Outback Water Committee to look at the issue of the provision of adequate water throughout the Outback. RDAFN is an active participant in this Committee. RDAFN as a stakeholder in Outback SA Community Alliance will be working with this group as a voice of the outback community in support of greater infrastructure development across the outback. There are good opportunities to bring forward new approaches to infrastructure development as an essential by-product of major new mining activities. In this regard, RDAFN will be working closely with BHP Billiton as they progress with their assessment to expand their operations at Olympic Dam to encourage the development of:

a desalination plant to supply Olympic Dam and surrounding townships with good quality, competitively priced water
a new power plant that will supply both Olympic Dam and other communities in northern South Australia
a new rail spur from Pimba to Olympic Dam

Transport is a priority sector for industry development across northern South Australia given the unique placement of Port Augusta at the crossroads of Australia's land transport network. There are also opportunities and needs to expand air services (both for general aviation and regular passenger transport) to support sustainable communities and industry development activities across the region. These are dealt with on the Transportpage of this site.

Underpinning much of RDAFN's reason to be is the support of sustainable communities. In this respect RDAFN has an ongoing role in encouraging the maintenance of essential community infrastructure such as health, education, recreation and broader community services.

RDAFN is a core partner in Outback SA Community Alliance; providing economic development delivery services to the alliance formed to support this initiative.

Business services

The RDAFN has an important role in fostering business attraction, commencement, growth and retention in its region. A healthy, vibrant and well informed business sector contributes to strong economic development, employment growth and economically sustainable communities.

RDAFN's most visible activity across the region is the provision of dedicated one-on-one business advisory services to support the sustainability and growth of small and medium enterprises. The Business Advisory page of this site details the approach the services the Board offers in this area.

Sectoral focus

The nature of the Board's region dictates the major sectors of the economy that the Board focuses on. In this section of the Website are pages on the following sectors : Resources; Transport, Emerging Industries of tourism, food and arts; Defence; Services.