As part of my travels in search of local development and inspirations for local & regional governments, I had the honor and pleasure of talking about Maltese local governments with the Acting President of Malta Prof. Frank Bezzina and with the Director General for Local Government in the Office of the Prime Minister of Malta, Natalino Attard

A lot is happening in politics, law, economy, technology, society, environment, etc. How can you find your way in this with your commune/city? What its development strategy you should develop, adapt and implement?

There are few things only that can teach you as much as a solid, but well-thought-out failure! This also applies to strategic governance of the cities’ & communes’ development.

The Development Strategy of the Dobrzyniewo Duże Commune for 2023-2033, prepared by me, was adopted unanimously. I also prepared the previous one, and within its framework the authorities and employees of the commune managed to achieve a lot.

As many as several dozen professors and doctoral students came to my lecture at Manisa Celal Bayar University. Self-government is also a hot topic in Turkey, so current Polish reforms in the field of development strategies of communes are of great interest here.

A quarter of a century of work on city/commune development strategies and hundreds of training courses I have given on this subject tell me one thing. Poland needs thousands of highly qualified and motivated local authorities and self-government managers.

So it happened! Yesterday, the President of Poland signed an act that not only revolutionizes our spatial planning, but also gives a superior role to commune development strategy (we have 2477 communes), making it mandatory soon.

The book I reviewed for AOSIS Scholarly Books describes the methods of promoting sustainable economic development used by South African local authorities.