A critical review of the sustainable development plans produced by local councils under the 2009/2010 Government of Malta scheme

Abstract

Malta has 68 local councils, 11 of which benefited from the funding of the scheme issued by the government of Malta in 2009/2010 entitled Skema ta' finanzjament għal lokalitajiet sostenibbli. The aim of this scheme was to ‗…get each local council to draft a strategy so that (its) locality will be sustainable in all sectors including infrastructural, environmental, social, educational and cultural spheres. Thus the local councils together with the residents would plan the future of the(ir) locality on a long term basis and in the best way.‘ The aim of this thesis is to investigate the effectiveness (or otherwise) of local councils in bringing about change vis-a-vis sustainable development and how local councils affect the communities they are responsible for from a social, educational, cultural and economical perspective. A qualitative approach consisting of content analysis and semi-structured interviews is adopted in this research. The content analysis consists in the analysis of the Sustainable Development plans produced by the local councils while through the semi-structured interviews the knowledge and vision of crucial stakeholders are investigated.