SUMMARY

In 2003 the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment financed an evaluation to give an overview of the Local Agenda 21 processes in the Bavarian municipalities. As a result, the research team of Prof. Magel (TU Muenchen) learned that Agenda 21 has lost of its visionary context, the reality scaled down the expectations. Agenda 21 is not always regarded as an effective instrument to achieve sustainability goals – it is too optional. On the other hand there are best practice examples of municipalities who took the demands seriously. Which lessons can be learned from them? In several workshops 21 successful municipalities explained how they deal with sustainable development and discussed which aspects of capacity building are relevant. The 21 Bavarian examples proved that municipalities need a constant mutual reflection of the common patterns that lead to non-sustainable state of things. But local authorities can not be left alone with this. Training for “good governance ” turns out to be the central point: It is the interchange of ideas, perspectives and arguments that helps to recognize what makes the difference between sustainable and non-sustainable; and it is the interchange of (good and bad) examples as wel