EFI establishes new Governance programme

The European Forest Institute (EFI) has signed an agreement with the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) for a start-up project which supports the establishment of EFI’s new Governance Programme. The NewGo! – New ways for forest governance project will receive a total of approx. 1.25 million euros for 2019-2022.

In the framework of NewGo!, EFI’s new Governance Programme will be developed and coordinated from Bonn in close collaboration with its EU FLEGT and REDD Facilities in Barcelona. The Programme aims to generate science-based knowledge to support an informed policy dialogue in view of sustainably managing all types of forests and tackling global challenges of deforestation and forest degradation. 

The new Head of Programme is Dr Georg Winkel, who will start in his position immediately. Dr Winkel is currently Head of EFI’s Resilience Programme, and Head of EFI’s Bonn Office. Dr Winkel holds a PhD and Habilitation in Forest and Environmental Policy, and is an Associate Professor at the University of Freiburg and a coopted Associate Professor at the University of Bonn. He has extensive background in analysing forest policy in different regions of the world, drawing on a rich set of analytical approaches and methods. “It has always been my passion to understand forest-related policy making at different scales. In a world with increasing economic, social and environmental connections, effective and inclusive policies need to work across scales and regions, and research needs to understand interdependencies between world regions to provide the best possible knowledge for decision makers”, said Georg.

Marc Palahí, EFI Director said: “EFI’s strategy is articulated around three mutually reinforcing themes: Bioeconomy, Resilience and Governance. The new Programme will increase the internal cohesion of EFI, bringing together expertise from our EU FLEGT and REDD Facilities, our governance scientists and our Network. It also provides us with a platform to collaborate with other global international organisations like CIFOR and ICRAF and networks like IUFRO.”

The NewGo! project is preparing the grounds for the operations of the Governance programme. Its objectives include the analysis of pre-existing and emerging global forest governance approaches. Furthermore, it aims at implementing a set of experimental tools to enhance research-practice and research-media collaboration in tackling global forest governance challenges. Finally, the project will synthesise its findings into globally accessible, research-based outputs for three target communities: forest policy makers, media and the global research community.

The project’s work will feed into the priority topics for the new Governance programme: 

• Understanding, comparing and characterising failures and successes as a basis for new forest governance mechanisms to address deforestation and the unsustainable use of forest resources in different world regions.
• Lessons learned from FLEGT and REDD and ways forward for combined synergies.
• The role of sustainable finance, agricultural commodities supply chains and international trade in deforestation and sustainable forest management.
• The role of media, information and market transparency in supporting good governance and sustainable forest management.

Images:©Delphotostock - stock.adobe.com; Simon Pugh Photography