In Canada, there are many examples of respectful relationships between municipalities and Aboriginal communities. Where Aboriginal peoples have concerns with the actions or inaction of governments (be they federal, provincial or municipal governments), it is often municipalities that are directly affected by the measures taken by Aboriginal peoples to express their concerns. To help reduce possible conflicts at the municipal level and find shared solutions, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing of the Province of Ontario has been advising municipalities in the province on the benefits of engaging and developing relationships with Aboriginal peoples.

This issue of the GSoD In Focus explores the contribution that the Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices can make to the review of progress on the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The GSoD Indices can be used to complement the official indicators of the SDGs, to acquire in-depth knowledge on trends in achieving the specific targets of individual SDGs. In this regard, the GSoD Indices can be used to provide data on the SDGs for poverty (SDG 1), hunger (2), health and wellbeing (3), education (4), gender equality (5), inequalities (10), sustainable cities and communities (11), peace, justice and institutions (16), and partnerships for the goals (17), as well as across the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In the lobby of City Hall in Burlington, Ontario, an inscription reads “Where people, nature and business thrive”. Repeatedly voted as one of the best places to live in Canada, the City of Burlington is committed to innovation, sustainable growth, and to building trust with its most valued assets – its constituents.

The Imperative of Good Local Governance is a true state-of-the-art volume in the field of local governance, decentralization and local democracy summarizing a substantial part of the insights from original research in the last decade. It is also a future-looking volume with explicit policy relevance, paving the way for innovative thinking (and acting) on the next phase of development in the field. In a unique way it brings together authoritative contributions from authors that to a large extent have been defining the field for the last decade or more. From a theoretical perspective it is adjoining top–down and bottom–up rationalities, which is further illuminated through a wide variety of key case studies. The case studies are selected for their relevance for the theoretical perspectives offered, as well as for their paradigmatic power in the current global evolution of decentralized policies and politics. The volume concludes that overall, local development and local politics will not go away – it has a huge potential – but also that the field is full of unfulfilled promises, some of which could be remedied through the perspectives revealed in this volume.