The paper is intended to contribute to the dialogue on the relevance of the sustainable development concept to improving human development. It discusses sustainable development in the context of governance within a political economy framework with reference to African countries in general and Liberia in particular. It provides an operational definition and explores the concepts relevance and applicability to improving human development as a dynamic process. From this perspective, the premise of the paper is that institutional failures contribute immensely to the current state of many African countries socio-economic malaise. Recognizing the inherent interplay of power politics and the personal dynamics of the African political economy, the paper provides brief preliminary insights for the development of an institutional sustainable development framework that includes several traditional organizational reform measures and institutional performance mechanisms characterized as best practices. The paper argues that these measures should be buttressed by more innovative pursuit of institutional viability through the effective implementation of appropriate strategies.