From rationality to governance: the decision process of sustainable development

Many of the challenges for sustainable development involve issues and triggering mechanisms that are global, long term and complex. Yet solutions need to be, for a large part, concrete, simple, short term and local. The purpose of Local Agenda 21 is to build local capacity and privateâpublicâcitizen partnerships for action on sustainability. This can be seen, on the one hand, through the development of sustainability indicators appropriate at different scales and, on the other hand, as the development of new forms of governance that bring stakeholders together at local levels and across levels, to define options for collective action. Multi-sector engagements through local stakeholders' networks are complementary with formal democratic institutions for implementing sustainable development policy.