UN Economic and Social Development
Division for Sustainable Development

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Agenda 21 calls on the international community to provide a supportive international climate for achieving environment and development goals.  Similarly, the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 1997, calls for a dynamic and enabling international economic environment supportive of international cooperation, particularly in the fields of finance, technology transfer, debt and trade (see resolution S-19/2, annex, para. 25-26).  It also noted that, as a result of globalization, external factors have become critical in determining the success or failure of developing countries in their national sustainable development efforts.

Given such considerations, the General Assembly placed international cooperation for an enabling environment for sustainable development on the agenda of the Commission at its ninth session, in 2001, as a cross-sectoral theme.

The term "enabling environment for sustainable development" is not clearly defined either in Agenda 21 or in the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21.  In the context of the CSD, consideration of the enabling environment for sustainable development focuses on the impact on sustainable development of major changes in the world economy due to globalization, as well as on national conditions affecting sustainable development.