Territorial governance and the sustainable development in rural territories : an imperative or a utopia? The case of Almeida.

The path towards territorial governance needs an emerging form of organisation between public and private entities and represents the local capacity of involvement and cooperation in the development process. So, territorial governance configures a sustainable perspective of development and takes an important territorial core values such as coherence and diversity in areas under pressure. The aim of the paper is to present a governance example in a Portuguese rural territory (Almeida municipality) and to argue the way to increase local sustainable development and reverse the demographic and economic negative trends. Some constraints and favourable aspects are identified and analysed. The methodology proposed to Almeida can also be adopted in other similar Portuguese peripheral rural territories