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CSD-6 Follow-up: Multi-Stakeholder Review of Voluntary Initiatives and Agreements for Industry

Background

During the Multi-stakeholder Dialogue on the Role of Industry (the Industry Segment), governments and major groups extensively discussed the role of industry initiatives for sustainable development. The scope of the discussion included not only voluntary initiatives and agreements generated by business and industry but also by other actors such as NGOs or Trade Unions. A proposal that emerged from these discussions was to review the effectiveness of such instruments in order to increase their contribution to achieving sustainable development objectives. Subsequently the CSD decided that :

...As a first step, representatives of industry, trade unions and non-governmental organizations should examine voluntary initiatives and agreements to identify those elements that can be considered for this review. The Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat could provide assistance in this process...

(E/CN.17/1998/20)

Based on this decision a VIA Project was launched in June 1998 through the establishment of a Steering Group composed of representatives from business, trade unions, NGOs and UNEP Technology Industry and Environment Office.

The Steering Group views the purpose of a review of voluntary initiatives and agreements as an effort to understand, recognize and increase contributions of VIAs to sustainable development, and through that process to develop mechanisms that facilitate the dissemination of the best practice examples they have generated. This is likely to increase the role of and credibility of voluntary initiatives and agreements as complements to regulatory instruments.

Steering Group

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Voluntary Initiatives and Agreements Profiles

The list of VIA Profiles below represent only a small number of such instruments that are currently in use. By some estimates there are thousands of such instruments developed by a variety of actors ranging from individual business, business associations or sectors to non-governmental organizations, community groups, trade unions as well as international organizations.

Initially prepared as background documentation for the multi- stakeholder consultation meeting to identify the key elements of a review of voluntary initiatives and agreements (organized by the VIA Steering Group and hosted by the Government of Canada in Toronto, 10-12 March 1999), the Profiles are made available here for the purpose of increasing general understanding and information about VIAs. Information on additional VIAs will be added to this site as they become available and as profiles on these instruments are developed.  

Preparation of the profiles followed the same methodology: a first draft using available information was prepared by DSD and sent to the initiator(s) for verification of content. A key principle in the drafting process was to provide factual information on each instrument.

  

Initiator organizations for the Profiles in the 'yet to be verified' set are most welcome to contact the Division for Sustainable Development with their corrections to the draft here. Corrections received will be reflected on this site immediately. Please send your corrections or comments to csdmgregister(at)un.org

  

The Division for Sustainable Development would like to express its thanks to Ms. Sylvia Kovacs (Consultant) and Ms. Karen Chier (Intern) for their valuable assistance with the preparation of these profiles. 

Profiles reviewed and verified by their Initiator(s)
Profiles yet to be reviewed and verified by their Initiator(s) 

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