The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was created in December 1992 and charged with the responsibility for following up and implementing Agenda 21, from the activities of the various inter-governmental bodies to the implementation of Local Agenda 21s at community level. It has a small secretariat and an assembly of representatives from fifty-three countries, but it has no legal powers to hold states to account.

The CSD has proved an important forum for keeping key issues in sustainable development on the international agenda, including forestry, freshwater and energy conservation, and has launched several important initiatives, such as a programme to draw up indicators of sustainable development. It also enables a wide range of NGOs to get involved in UN processes.

At the follow-up Earth Summit in New York in 1997, the CSD was given a new five-year agenda based around the primary aims of poverty alleviation and over-consumption, speeding up the implementation of Agenda 21. However, the rejection of a proposal to allow the CSD to peer review the national Agenda 21 reports submitted by each country underlines the problems it faces: it can require a state to produce a report, but it cannot insist that these reports are adequate, let alone implemented.

CSD website
(http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd.htm)