We can think of the XC-funtional as a ladder, where the top rung is the real XC-functional. Starting at the bottom rung is the LDA. The goal is that every rung maintains the good properties of the rungs below it while improving one aspect of the XC approximation. If we can continue doing this process one rung at a time, we may eventually reach the top rung (or at least come very close to it).