7.1 The relevance and novelty of SHD at the local level

In order to contribute to future development thinking and visions, this book has tried to advance a people-centred and place-based development per­spective, based on the integration of Amartya Sen's Capability Approach (CA) with the literature on local development and evolutionary think­ing.

The most innovative element in this book is the recognition that people- centred processes of capability expansion and human flourishing are funda­mentally embedded in the local realms of polity, politics and policy, that is, the characteristics and functionings of local systems where individual and collective agents live and interact. In this regard, four arguments have been advanced that build on unexplored synergies between the CA and local development perspective: (i) human development is implicitly a place-based process; (ii) participation and agency freedom is mostly locally experienced; (iii) the expansion of human capabilities is inexorably linked to local gover­nance mechanisms within a multilevel perspective; and (iv) individuals and their capabilities and agency expansion processes are territorially embedded.

Therefore, the notion of "Sustainable Human Development (SHD) at the local level” has been advocated as a process of enabling the local system to function in order to facilitate the expansion of the real freedoms that people enjoy in an integrated and sustainable manner. Within this per­spective, it has been emphasized that each territory's institutional structure, social capital, synergies between economic and social variables and trans­territorial relations represent the main analytical coordinates for considering how trajectories of SHD are supported or hampered.

In other words, the arguments in this book have been developed on the basis of a conceptual and interpretive framework for SHD, able to account, in theoretical, empirical and policy terms, for the complexity of territorial evo­lution. The central innovation of the Sustainable Territorial Evolution for Human Development (STEHD) framework is to consider the "working per­formances” expressed by local development systems as territorial achieved functionings. These are outcomes of territorial development processes (such as the production of local goods and services), which in turn constitute key inputs and conversion factors facilitating (or hampering) the agents' oppor­tunities to achieve their objectives and to flourish, that is, to expand their capabilities in order to achieve what is considered valuable. The STEHD framework therefore delves into connections among individual, collective and territorial dynamics, as procedural feedback loops operating through the exercise of agency and empowerment shape the ongoing iterative evolu­tion of local societies. As we have seen, this framework has the advantage of focusing on the role of novelty, complexity, qualitative change, undersigned order, diversity and pluralism, and path dependence, creation or destruction. Applying the framework to the notion of SHD at the local level has been fundamental in framing the non-linear interplay of processes that drive the structural transformations of social, economic, ecological and institutional systems.

An additional element of novelty has been introduced to increase under­standing of the real world: the variety of agents and actors involved in the policy domains and networks has been captured by framing multilevel gov­ernance within an SHD perspective at the local level. In this regard, it appears that the value of multilevel articulation lies in the capacity to foster the val­orization of endogenous resources through local stakeholder participation, inclusion and agency, as well as by consolidating these processes with resources, competences and initiatives coming from other territories and higher levels. The extent to which multilevel dialogue and articulation are able to foster institutional reflexivity, collective mobilization and social creativity in promoting SHD trajectories is central.

Being aware of the level of abstraction of these arguments (although several empirical issues have received some attention in the course of theo­retical discussions), the book has operationalized the notion of SHD at the local level and its evolutionary framework by firstly presenting a potential analytical procedure for its application and then by looking more closely at a few case studies: the UNDP ART Global Initiative and Local Economic Development Agencies (LEDAs). The former has challenged traditional aid mechanisms by acting as a catalyst and facilitator of SHD processes at the local level, rather than as just a provider of resources. In fact, notwithstand­ing relevant operational difficulties and risks, the ART Initiative facilitates dynamic and interactive learning processes to foster endogenous SHD trajec­tories and empower territorial communities, working simultaneously at the local, national and global levels. The latter have been shown to potentially act as enabling factors of LED, acting as local meta-organizers and facilitators of "conscious governance” by building on endogenous resources, barriers and capacities and by shaping a new set of interrelations among the realms of territorial polity, politics and policy.

From the detailed discussion of ART's and LEDAs' enabling processes for SHD, the need for dealing with questions of economic and social policy, and particularly with the elements allowing for design tailored and place-based strategies for SHD emerged, among other things. Therefore, this book has delved into the dynamics, shaping policy change as well as the processes driving its evolution towards SHD trajectories. In particular, diversity and conflicts among values, interests and ideas within local societies have been recognized as having the potential to nurture policy evolution, while public deliberation, institution-building and collective learning constitute the procedu­ral elements widening or restricting the "policy-enabling space” territorial stakeholders build on to foster SHD.

Therefore, within the book, the policy significance of the capability approach is strengthened by dealing with political economy issues regard­ing ‘policy decision-making processes and the ways in which conflicts and distributions of power are institutionalized' (Deneulin and McGregor, 2010, p. 501).

In summary, the novelty of adopting a new SHD perspective at the local level along with the conceptual and interpretative framework we have developed shed new light on academic and policy debates.

Firstly, the SHD perspective and the STEHD framework embrace the dynamic essence of territorial development processes, while maintaining a consistent reference to values, choice and capability expansion or reduction at the individual level, thus resolving the tension between people-centred (often place-neutral) and place-based (often people indifferent) perspectives. Secondly, they build on a vision of holistic, progressive and sustainable development, able to go beyond the separations between sectors and levels, as well as among social, economic and environmental concerns. Thirdly, they are focused on the understanding, assessment and nurturing of pro­cesses of SHD, rather than outcomes, emphasizing the drivers of territorial evolutionary dynamics within the polity-politics-policy realms.

Although some of these arguments may appear familiar, this book attempts to bring different arguments and criticisms of existing approaches together in a constructive way, emphasizing new facets and connection points, in order to highlight previously overlooked features of the real world. It should be recognized that the road to SHD is complex and SHD results do not last forever. Multilevel processes require to be aligned and continuously sustained by collective efforts, because, as argued by Prof. Becattini in the Prologue, once clarified its feasibility ‘it is worthwhile - and more viable - to relentlessly pursue it'.

7.2