Chapter 37 of Agenda 21 focuses on the capacity-building needs of the developing countries, addressing such issues as lack of skills, deficient institutional capacities and capabilities, and the technological and scientific requirements and resources needed to "enhance environmental knowledge and administration to integrate environment and development." The United Nations system and developed countries are asked to provide technical cooperation to help fill these needs and gaps.

Skills and know-how are as important as technology and other factors to the promotion of developmental and environmental sustainability, and support for various kinds of capacity-building measures has long been part of UNFPA country programmes. Such measures range from the integration of population education programmes in the formal school system to support for the incorporation of family life education in the educational programmes of national cooperatives, workers’ unions and adult literacy courses. Other measures include the provision, through the country programmes, for graduate and postgraduate scholarships and fellowships; the strengthening of national institutions’ technical capabilities in the field of demography and population studies; and the provision of international courses for training in population and development.