A/HRC/21/21 Compact Office has also facilitated briefings for United Nations staff on the “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework. 25. The Global Compact provides a platform for direct engagement with the business sector, including through its local networks, to raise awareness, develop tools and guidance materials,13 and shares knowledge and good practices on integrating human rights into business practice. The Finance Initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), a global partnership on sustainability with the financial sector, pursues a work stream on human rights and finance that also incorporates the Guiding Principles. 26. Other activities by United Nations system entities also provide support to stakeholders in relation to business and human rights. Importantly, ILO follows up on the ratification of conventions by building the capacity of Governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations on international labour standards. It also provides enterprises with direct guidance on how to respect labour-related human rights through its Helpdesk for Business and through business-related networks. 27. The Peacebuilding Support Office and the UNEP Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch provide policy guidance on the management of national resources and the role of the private sector. Other agencies, such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), carry out activities to support Governments and businesses in fostering responsible business practices and pro-poor investments. UNDP also conducts programmes focused on facilitating greater understanding between the extractive sector, indigenous peoples and Governments. V. Advancing the business and human rights agenda A. Embedding the agenda 28. The business and human rights agenda falls squarely within the bounds of the broader mainstreaming of human rights in the United Nations system, which has been central to a series of United Nations reform initiatives since 1997. However, despite the range of activities described above, the issue of business and human rights is not yet part of mainstream United Nations operations, not even within the human rights system itself. While ongoing efforts to advance the business and human rights agenda and the Guiding Principles are important, they do not derive from an overarching organizational strategy and thus face the risk of incoherence and fragmentation of efforts. Furthermore, in the absence of a coordinated strategic effort to embed the issue in existing policy and coordination bodies across the United Nations system, the latter’s role in advancing this agenda may not reach the necessary scale nor realize its full potential for impact at the operational level. 29. It is therefore important to ensure system-wide coordination of policy, programmes and activities, and to ensure that efforts can respond to the scale of the challenge of advancing the human rights agenda. The Guiding Principles should be embedded, where appropriate, in the policy-setting agenda of the Chief Executives Board for Coordination and its subsidiary bodies, the High-level Committee on Programmes, the United Nations Development Group and the High-level Committee on Management. Embedding is also necessary with regard to other coordination mechanisms, such as the Inter-Agency Framework for Coordination on Preventive Action, the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee for the coordination 13 See www.unglobalcompact.org/Issues/human_rights/Tools_and_Guidance_Materials.html. 7