Africa faces daunting sustainable development challenges in coming decades, but also significant opportunities. The period since the beginning of this new millennium has been one of the strongest economic performance on the continent. This volume aims to highlight many exciting innovations for sustainable development in Africa at the local level. It also begins to assess the scope of scaling up these innovations to make an impact on a larger scale. The preparation of this volume is the result of a fruitful dialogue and interaction between the UN Secretariat and practitioners in the field in Africa. In addition to informing practitioners and policy makers in Africa, the volume is meant to inform and enrich discussions within the Commission on Sustainable Development at its 16th and 17th sessions (2008 and 2009).