Following approval of the Gernika Statute, in the mid 90s the Basque Government regularly worked on different UN programmes, particularly with the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

From then on, cooperation with the UN materialised in the creation of UN scholarships under the Basque Government Cooperation in Development programme, permitting closer relations, especially with UNICEF, UNESCO and the UNDP, and fieldwork collaboration by Basque voluntary workers employed at the agency's different offices, above all in Latin America.

En 1997, in the name of the Basque Government, Lehendakari José Antonio Ardanza signed the first Memorandum of Understanding with UNESCO on cooperation in cultural and educational matters, subsequently extended in 1999 by Lehendakari Juan José Ibarretxe.

Since late 2002, a series of initiatives and projects have been produced by various Basque Government departments with similar objectives and strategies underlining their sectorial competences. Thus, as a result of the IT4ALL (Information Technology for All) Conference in Bilbao, the Department of the Environment and Regional Planning, with the World Summit in Johannesburg, the Housing and Social Affairs Department with the Porto Alegre Forum and the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism with Bizkaia Provincial Council, have launched the creation of various worldwide regional government networks with two main objectives:

• The achieving of direct dialogue with the UN and the UN System and its different agencies with a view to achieving de facto UN recognition of the role of Regions with Legislative Power.
• The positioning of The Basque Country as the spearhead or co-leader of a network of regions aspiring to play an active part in a series of matters no longer of exclusively State competence.

In February 2003, Lehendakari Ibarretxe signed an agreement in Bilbao with the Under-Secretary-General of the UN and the Director General of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) on collaboration between the Basque Government and the Institute with respect to the Information Society.

Thus, in March 2003, San Sebastián hosted the 2nd World Conference of the Network of Regional Governments for Sustainable Development, consisting of over a hundred non-central governments.

On the other hand, the Basque Government clearly aspires to assume as its own UN programmes and initiatives, such as the Millennium Declaration recently leading to the signing of an agreement between the Lehendakari and the Executive Coordinator for the Millennium Development Goals Campaign, Eveline Herfkens. This Declaration of Commitment places particular emphasis on the principles and values stipulated in Chapter I, which, in addition to indicating the original principles of the United Nations and those of International Law, includes 6 essential values for 21st-century relations: freedom, equality, tolerance, solidarity, respect for nature and common responsibility. The Basque Government similarly states its concern for the efforts described in Chapter II of the Declaration in favour of peace, security and disarmament, the objectives of development and eradicating poverty stated in Chapter III, and the 8 objectives and 18 goals "to which we feel committed".

All of the above underlines the increasing collaboration taking place between the Basque Government and the United Nations, not forgetting the decisive stakes placed by the former on extending this cooperation to other departments interested in contributing their experience and learning gained from other initiatives, already a reality in the case of the Department of Health and the World Health Organisation (WHO) or between the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).