Agenda 21 and UNCTAD IX provided UNCTAD with a mandate to promote the integration of trade, environment and development. UNCTAD's special role is to examine trade and environment issues from a development perspective. This mandate has been implemented through intergovernmental deliberations, policy analysis, empirical studies, briefings, workshops and seminars, using both budgetary and extrabudgetary resources.

The General Assembly, at its nineteenth special session in September 1997, requested UNCTAD to continue to play a key role in the implementation of Agenda 21, through the integrated examination of linkages among trade, investment, technology, finance and sustainable development.

• to undertake analytical work on trade, environment and development, including in the field of competitiveness, market access, eco-labelling, multilateral environmental agreements, positive/ supportive/ enabling measures, and trade liberalization and sustainable development, and to disseminate the results;
• to monitor developments in the field of trade and environment, in particular in the WTO;
• to build concensus among member States on the interaction between environment and trade policies from a development perspective;
• to assist developing countries in the area of trade and environment, including through the use of country studies, technical assistance programmes, and training, including:
  • to enhance the capacity of the public and private sectors of developing countries to address, in a participatory framework, trade and sustainable development issues;
  • to support the effective participation of developing countries in deliberations of the relevant international forums; and
  • to contribute to the design and implementation of economic policies and measures to ensure that developing countries obtain economic benefits from the full use of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
• to disseminate information on the relationship between trade and environment to policy makers.