A comparative perspective on self-assessment of Local Agenda 21 in European cities

The aim of this article is to describe a model for evaluating Local Agenda 21 processes. The local level extension of Agenda 21, Local Agenda 21 (LA21), is a typical instrument for extensive governance. It is primarily a voluntary sustainability policy tool with a goal of activating existing local government and other local stakeholder organisations in order to meet the local level challenges for the local and global environment, and social and local economic conditions. It also aims to create new governance structures among political and non-political actors. In a European perspective, the introduction of LA21 to cities can be considered as a success-story, but these activities are not distributed equally in Europe. To compare these differences we use a quantitative database from 146 European cities, all of them active in a LA21 or similar policy process. The data presented here is collected within an international research project entitled \LASALA — Local authorities' self-assessment of local Agenda\, funded by European Commission, DG Research, 5th Framework Programme, 2000–2001.