During the last century, the world has faced unprecedented challenges relating to the degradation of the socio-ecological system. In light of this, governments play an important role to help tackle these issues. This thesis identifies the Open Government Partnership (OGP) organisation, as an initiative that can support governments in addressing these challenges. In particular, the potential to address these issues relates to OGP’s vision of strengthening governance by increasing transparency, accountability and participation. Therefore, the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) was used to analyse the results from the semi-structured interviews, literature review and document analysis, in order to identify the strengths and limitations of OGP’s planning approach. Based on these results, recommendations call for the utilisation of the ABCD strategic planning process to assist OGP member governments and stakeholders to develop a concrete definition of sustainability, and a strategic planning approach that can support society in moving towards sustainability.

The world faces sustainability challenges directly attributable to human behaviour, and expected to irreparably degrade the socio-ecological system. Cartography (mapping) is a diverse planning and communicating discipline used for strategic development of global and local solutions to these challenges. Its flexible yet robust technology can generate common understanding of issues and inspire successful solutions. This thesis studied community mapping, specifically how community mapping practitioners (CMPs) can use community mapping tools (CMTs) more effectively for Strategic Sustainable Development (SSD). Data of current SSD strengths of six CMTs was collected using the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) and 13 interviews with practitioners. Thirty-six Key Elements (KEs) of guidance for CMPs to use CMTs were developed. A Compass Model was designed to interlink the KEs, in eight interrelated categories, with the ABCD Strategic Planning Process (ABCD). The results suggest that CMPs using CMTs combined with an SSD approach have the potential to create effective solutions towards sustainability.