Of course, it is not guaranteed that every organisation w'hich deals with at least two different issues addresses the complexities of metropolitan area governance in a meaningful way. Nevertheless, the distinction between organisations that focus on one issue and organisations that focus on many issues is an operationally useful and objective w'ay to identify organisations that work across individual policy fields. The national government reintroduced municipalities as the basic building block of subnational government in 1990 as part of the process of restoring democratically elected governments. Municipalities were given significant responsibility for local administration and planning, with each municipality having independence from oversight by other municipalities.