International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development
As an independent non-profit and non-governmental organisation, ICTSD
engages a broad range of actors in ongoing dialogue about trade and
sustainable development. With a wide network of governmental,
non-governmental and inter-governmental partners, ICTSD plays a unique
systemic role as a provider of original, non-partisan reporting and
facilitation services at the intersection of international trade and
sustainable development.
ICTSD facilitates interaction between policy-makers and those outside
the system to help trade policy become more supportive of sustainable
development. By helping parties increase capacity and become better
informed about each other, ICTSD builds bridges between groups with
seemingly disparate agendas. It seeks to enable these actors to discover
the many places where their interests and priorities coincide, for
ultimately sustainable development is their common objective.
ICTSD’s Mission: By empowering stakeholders in trade policy through
information, networking, dialogue, well-targeted research, and capacity
building, to influence the international trade system such that it
advances the goal of sustainable development.
ICTSD is accredited by the United Nations. In this context it enjoys
Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council
(ECOSOC); Observer Status at the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations Industial Development
Organization (UNIDO), The World Health Organization (WHO), the Codex
Alimentarius Commission and at the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO). The Centre has also been granted accreditation
since 1996 by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to participate in all
its Ministerial Conferences and other ad hoc activities. ICTSD is
further accredited to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Since July 2005,
ICTSD is an accredited member of the Governing Council of United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP).
ICTSD is a principal member of the Trade Knowledge Network (TKN); and
the Frati Initiative on Intellectual Property and Development; and a
founding member of the Geneva Environment Network (GEN); Concerted
Action on Trade and Environment (CAT&E) and the Grupo Zapallar (GZ).
ICTSD leads the Trade and Development Symposium, an informal
consortium of international organisations, research institutes and NGOs
active around major trade and development events, and has served as a
principal convener of the Global Biodiversity Forum (GBF) on Trade.
Through its Executive Director, the Centre participates in the UN
Millennium Project’s Task Force on Trade; the WTO Director General’s NGO
Advisory Group and the Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social
Policy (CEESP) of the World Conservation Union (IUCN).