International activities

Agenda 21 - Sustainable Development

Fact sheet
Department of the Environment and Heritage, June 2002
revised January 2004

PDF file

About the fact sheet

Agenda 21 is an international blueprint that outlines actions that governments, international organisations, industries and the community can take to achieve sustainability. These actions recognise the impacts of human behaviours on the environment and on the sustainability of systems of production. The objective of Agenda 21 is the alleviation of poverty, hunger, sickness and illiteracy worldwide while halting the deterioration of ecosystems which sustain life.

Agenda 21 represents international consensus, following two years of research, drafting and intensive negotiations at the four meetings of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) Preparatory Committee.

Adopted at the UNCED Summit meeting on 14 June 1992, Agenda 21 covers all the issues referred to UNCED by the UN General Assembly in its Resolution 44/228 of 1989.

Agenda 21 Sustainable development fact sheet

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