Social Networking and Governance for Sustainable Development

Communications technology has enabled new approaches to governance in which stakeholders across sectors and jurisdictions are engaged in consensus building and implementation processes. This paper explores some mechanisms through which online social networking may impact governance for sustainable development. Are social networking sites driving the transformation of the governance landscape or are they merely diverting vast amounts of time from addressing the difficult sustainable development challenges at hand? And if they are useful tools for sustainable development, how can we ensure that they live up to their potential?