Institutional aspects of governance for sustainable development in Flanders

Abstract

This paper describes how Belgium is one of the first countries to integrate the concept of sustainable development in its constitution. One of the reasons for the growing political consciousness is the fact that Belgium, as a small and centrally located country, is following the international political scene closely. In addition, sustainable development is gaining importance on the European and international level. Even though the country is small, not all government levels are moving at the same pace or in the same way to integrated policymaking, taking into account all aspects of sustainable development. All political levels have their own idea about the manner of implementation. This paper will focus on the institutional aspects of the Flemish governance model. The paper describes and analyzes how sustainability is currently integrated in the legal framework, in administration, in the political authorities and in the strategic policy framework. The paper also gives an overview of positive evolutions and indicates the bottlenecks.