Our Best Practices represent strategies that are the seeds of change, that challenge the current paradigm of development, that redefine development roles, reframe local governance and redistribute the use of resources. When women take leadership roles in local development, corruption is reduced and solutions are developed that are more in harmony with the whole community as well as with the natural environment. In the South this often means reconnecting to local traditions and traditional practices. Only when there are equitable partnerships between grassroots and mainstream partners can the quality of policy making be improved and can there be innovation. The persistent problems with poverty, decent housing, land tenure and sustainable development point to basic deficiencies in mainstream knowledge systems.
More emphasis needs to be put on exploring the knowledge systems that come from the ground.