[1] It has General Consultative NGO status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations[2] since 2002.

[3] FWCC shares responsibility for the Quaker UN Office in Geneva and New York City[4] with the American Friends Service Committee[5] and Britain Yearly Meeting.

FWCC was set up at the 1937 Second World Conference of Friends in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, US, to act in a consultative capacity to promote better understanding among Friends the world over, particularly by the encouragement of joint conferences and intervisitation, the collection and circulation of information about Quaker literature and other activities directed towards that end.

Europe and Middle East Section (EMES) is numerically the smallest of the Quaker Sections but historically the oldest and is growing in former Eastern Bloc countries, though declining in so-called Western Europe countries.

Friends have a long-standing presence in the Middle East and the Palestine, dating back to Ottoman times.

Britain Yearly Meeting's Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW) is one of the significant international Friends agencies.

The FWCC Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Geneva is partly supported by Britain Yearly Meeting.

FWCC's other QUNO branch is located adjacent to the New York UN Building and is closely connected with the quasi-Quaker organisation American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

Section of the Americas Friends have a long history dating back to the mid-17th Century.

The first World Conference of Friends was held in the U.K. in 1920 and the second, at which FWCC was founded, took place in Pennsylvania in 1937.