Results from municipalities

Checklists from 20 municipalities were gathered.

Table 1 below shows the general results for each country.

Table 1

All the municipalities have agreed to work with with LA21. The lower figures from Finland, 88% can be explained with one municipality which claims to only be working ´partly´with LA21, but has recently become a participant in LA21 work on a regional level.
The results for Norway concerning the local authorities having politically adopted an LA plan are considerably lower than in the other countries. The countries vary in having measurable objectives and means, with Sweden and Iceland highest. Also, the countries vary considerably in having project plans already made, with Sweden the highest and Finland the lowest. The countries are doing similarly in having a special employee in working with LA21. Only Denmark is doing reasonably well in having a clause for revision.
In general the results show that systematic LA21 work in the relevant municipalities, has a good base, other than with making objectives and means measurable and to ensure a regular revision of the LA21 ´paper´.

Table 2

As can be seen here, the "classical" environmental topics seem to have the most focus in LA21 work. These are waste, reuse and recycling, water and sewage. The emphasis also seems to be quite high for land use and planning, environmental and health protection, nature- and culture preservation and environmental education. An exception is Denmark where environmental and health protection and nature- and culture preservation seem to receive less attention in LA21.
The countries are all rather low on social aspects which fits with a recently published Nordic ProSus Report on LA21 work in the Nordic countries .
The percentage is rather high for local participation/local democracy, with all countries scoring over 50% and Denmark reaching a 100% result. This mainly applies to giving the local population opportunities to participate in the forming of the Local Agenda, as seen in Table 4 below.
In general LA21 does not seem to reach strongly into the municipalities´ administration. Finally, international solidarity seems to be very much a "missing link" in all the countries. This is rather common in LA21 work, that municipalities do not make an attempt to establish a North - South link and thereby do not acknowledge the importance of Western "well off" countries supporting their poorer neighbours in other parts of the world in order to move towards a sustainable development. This, and other aspects of international cooperation can be seen in Table 5, below. Municipalities in most countries are participants in Nordic municipality friendship schemes, but only about half of them, on average, are using these to pursue cooperation within the field of LA21.

Tables 3, 4 and 5 below show the result for the other policy making, cooperation and international.

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Sweden, Denmark and Finland have a similar score in having specific projects with young people, or 63%. The score for Iceland and Norway is much lower. The figures for the participation of senior citizens are rather low. However the work with senior citizens is overall slightly more than with young people. See Table 4.

Table 6 below show the results for information.

Table 6

Table 6 shows that the score for information and/or training about LA21 and Sustainable Development. The figures for persons in local council and committees (politicians) are quite high for Norway, Iceland and Sweden but somewhat lower for Denmark and Finland. The figures for employees are quite high for Finland, Denmark and Sweden, rather low for Iceland and very low for Norway. The figures for business and trade are rather low as well as for NGO´s, except for Sweden. The results for both pupils in elementary schools and children in kindergardens are reasonably high for Sweden and Finland, but low for municipalities in other countries. Finally, the results show that Sweden does best in this category.

The table below shows the results for general LA21 work for each country. The municipalities in Sweden are doing best of the five countries.

Table 7

The table below shows the total score for municipalities, population and the percentage of job(s) working specifically with LA21. Please note that in several cases that information was missing, and therefore the results are less reliable. Also, it is important to notice that some of the difference can be explained by difference in how the questionnaire was answered. For example, Hafnarfjörður in Iceland is considered as being one of the leading communities in LA21 in the country, but they only come third of the Icelandic municipalities. But, all care taken, let us announce, that according to this, it is Uddevalla in Sweden that has the highest score!

  Photos by participants

Gardabær, Iceland

Hamenlinna, Finland