Local Governance performs a major role in the rural development of European countries. In a governance, decisions are taken by several actors organised in partnerships. Governance failure may occur when conflicts arise within the partnership in the planning phase. In order to manage the possible conflicts in the phase of agreement, the adoption of decision-aid models simplifies the decisional process and the elaboration of a development strategy shared by all Partnership members. This study aims at presenting an integrated methodology which may be used by the experts of a Local Action Group in the planning, implementation and evaluation phases of a development plan.

Being based on decision support systems and on a phased convergence process, the methodology has been applied to the Leader area “Reggino Versante Tirrenico” in Calabria. This is an area including 44 municipalities and a socio-economic partnership with more than 100 partners. The methodology not only favours the definition of a strategy developed with the contribution of the partnership as a whole, but also the accomplishment of goals settled in the planning phase.