Abstract
Starting with a questioning of the determinants of territorialized rural public actions and mechanisms of social innovation and of institutional change associated with them, we examine two programs located in the Borborema region, in Paraíba, Brazil. Social innovations deployed locally are part of innovation systems that are rooted in historical patterns of state intervention in rural areas. The assessment of social innovations carried out by the State has tended to be fragmented and peripheral. It appears that the sustainability of institutional innovation related to the implementation process of territorial coordination depends on a complementary process of harmonization of standards within the State apparatus itself.