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About Local Agenda 21

Local Agenda 21 (LA21) is a programme of particular municipalities, cities, and regions which implements the principles of sustainable development, taking into account local issues. It is designed in cooperation with local residents and organisations with the objective of ensuring a high quality of life and the environment in a given location in the long term.

LA21 is a time consuming process which through improving the administration of public matters, allowing for strategic planning (management), involving the public and using the achieved level of knowledge of sustainable development, enhances the quality of life in all respects and heads towards citizens’ taking responsibility for their lives as well as for the lives of others.

Many activities and programmes leading to a better quality of life and the environment in cities/municipalities/regions could be called LA21. However, individual activities must be part of a long term, clearly defined and publicly accepted sustainable development strategy. Anyone can initiate LA21 (local administration, NGOs, schools, even individuals). The initiating group should engage as many people as possible in the preparation of an action plan, which will subsequently have a need of political backing.

LA21 can be implemented by an action within local administration:

  • performance and operation of local administration leading to sustainability,
  • inclusion of the principles of sustainable development among the priorities of local self-administrations and in documents,

or performed through other activities within broader communities and units:

  • increasing awareness of sustainable development, education,
  • advisory, consultancy and information activity,
  • engaging the public in decision-making,
  • cooperation, partnership,
  • creation of a local sustainable development strategy and action plan,
  • measuring the efficiency of the LA21 process, informing about and analysing the progress achieved,
  • monitoring other specified indicators (e.g. the ECI set of indicators).

Definitions:

Agenda 21Agenda 21 is a UN document adopted at the environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (Earth Summit). It is a programme for the 21st century; it shows the path to sustainable development on our planet. It is a complex manual for global events which may mark or influence the transition to sustainable development.
Local Agenda 21 (LA21)Local Agenda 21 is a tool for the implementation of the principles of sustainable development at the local and regional levels. It is implemented at a specific time and place, in a municipality or a region. It is a process which through improving the administration of public matters, allowing for strategic planning (management), involving the public and using the achieved level of knowledge of sustainable development in individual areas, enhances the quality of life in all respects and heads towards citizens’ taking responsibility for their lives as well as for the lives of other organisms in time and space.
Localrefers to your own place of living, activity and administration unit or, if applicable, region.
Agendais a word of Latin origin meaning programme or a list of things which need to be done in order to achieve an objective.
21refers to what needs to be done in the 21st century, encourages people to think over a longer time-span.
Sustainable DevelopmentSustainable development means development which satisfies current needs without compromising the opportunities for future generations to fulfil their own needs. (G. H. Brundland, Our Common Future, 1987)
Sustainable development is a way of life focused on seeking harmony between men and nature, between society and its environment. It is also based on the balance between freedoms and rights of every individual and his or her responsibility to others as well as to nature as a whole.
Sustainable social development is such development which preserves the possibility to secure the necessities of life for future generations without reducing biodiversity and which preserves the natural functions of ecosystems (Section 6 of the Act No. 17/1992 Coll., on the Environment).