1st Meeting of the UNEP Network of Institutions for Sustainable Development (NISD)

26 March 2004, Jeju Island, Republic of Korea

The meeting, co-hosted by the Korean Environment Institute and UNEP, brought together representatives from 24 institutions, including universities, research and training institutes and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to discuss the objectives and modalities of the Network of Institutions for Sustainable Development (NISD). The institutions agreed that the main objective of the network will be "to promote the integration of environment and sustainability issues into economic and trade policies". Each institution briefly introduced its main capacity building activities, including presentations of existing network experiences, demonstrating the wealth of experience in research activities (including country studies and transnational research), training, advocacy work, thematic networks etc., that could be made available more widely through the network and used to catalyse new initiatives. The institutions present all welcomed the initiative to establish NISD as a vehicle to enhance information exchange, capacity building, outreach activities, and the dissemination of existing materials on trade and economic-related issues. The need to provide targeted knowledge that enables policy makers to understand potential synergies between environment and development objectives and to mainstream environment into development decision-making was acknowledged. To work towards this goal, NISD members will provide a national focal point that communicates regional priorities, takes the lead on certain activities and disseminates information and results at national level.