Co- Plan

All  Western  Balkan  countries  share,  despite  their  diversity  and  idiosyncrasies,  a  common  aspiration  for  a  future  within  the  European  Union,  similarities  with  respect  to  development  and integration agendas, as well as face imperfections of their planning systems and Territorial Governance  (TG)  practices.  The  current  socio-political  ambitions  and  regional  dynamics  in  the  Western  Balkan  Region,  call  for  societal  actors  to  actively  participate  in  the  discourse  on  territorial governance. Territory  as  a  policy  dimension  and  as  a  resource,  is  inherent  to  any  decision-making  that  addresses  sustainable  development,  socio-ecological  interactions,  and  resilience.  Political  dynamics also build on the territory, distressing territorial functionalities and capital, both vital to the mere existence of the society, and shared in common by communities. Such a complexity is highly present in the Western Balkan, a region where diversity and commonalities are utterly intertwined and deeply rooted in its historical course. Such a complexity, is also understood to underpin the challenges faced by the region in its efforts to integrate internally and with the European Union, hence pursuing the path set by the Berlin Process. The Western Balkan Network on Territorial Governance, a group of civil society organisations and researchers believes that a prosperous, cohesive, yet diverse Western Balkans demands for territorial governance and necessitates cooperation: cooperation between places, actors, and sectors, with sustainable territorial development as the final aim. As part of the societal actors, the Network, which comprises of civil society actors based in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria,  Croatia,  Greece,  Hungary,  Italy,  Kosovo,  Luxembourg,  Montenegro,  Netherlands,  Republic of North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia, believes that cooperation should be  nourished  from  the  bottom-up,  with  non-state  actors  inducing  and  driving  governments  towards endorsing a common approach for the region. Yet, while this process is desirable, it is also complex and necessitates well-versed stakeholders to shape it. In this frame, the Network proposes the ‘Annual Review of Territorial Governance in the Western Balkans’, an annual periodical, as a platform for informed policy interaction, aiming at bringing together research and policy-influencing actors, to enable good territorial governance in the Western Balkan  Region,  in  line  with  its  sustainable  development  goals  and  European  Union  integration  ambitions.  This  periodical  welcomes  contributions  focusing  on  territorial  development  and  governance  matters  in  the  Western  Balkans,  as  well  as  context  framing  articles  with  varying  territorial perspectives, relevant to the territoriality and developments in the Western Balkans countries.  As  such,  all  articles  aim  to  bring  a  policy  outlook  relating  to  sectors,  institutional  capacities, polycentricity in place-based governance, politics of the territory, and geostrategic decisions that affect the region.