The article analyzes one of the basic elements of recent approaches to rural local development processes, the notion of social partnership. It is established the relationship between partnership and the notion of governance, and some of the issues involved - between cooperation and conflict, between efficacy and legitimacy, and between local and non local levels - are examined. It is asserted the need of complementing these arrangements with the construction of a national view of development and actions aimed at the real empowerment of excluded sectors.
Social partnership; governance; local development programmes