This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities. Agenda 21 recommends that existing assistance consortia, consultative groups and round tables should make greater efforts to integrate environmental considerations and related development objectives into their development assistance strategies, and consider reorienting and appropriately adjusting their membership and operations to facilitate this process and better support national efforts to integrate environment and development.
In the Helsinki Declaration, ministers of the environment and of health of WHO's European Region recalled "the need to integrate health, environment and development goals and activities" and "the need for better utilization of the limited resources available."