VERIFOR is an ODI-led project, with partners in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Partners include ODI, CATIE, CIFOR, and RECOFT
VERIFOR is funded by the European Union Tropical Forest Budget Line, and the Governments of the Netherlands and Germany
Project Rationale
Led by ODI and financed by the EU, the VERIFOR project will support the EU FLEGT Action Plan by helping the EU’s partner countries verify that their timber has been legally harvested. It focuses on institutional options and the provision of equitable solutions that do not have adverse effects on the poor, and which support the principles of good governance. It will work with partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America to assist those working within national forest authorities and with verification agencies. It is in two phases: the first leads to a major international conference to review existing verification systems, both within the sector and beyond; the second will build a dialogue with interested parties to design verification systems that are well attuned to country realities and enjoy broad national ownership. The project will end with a second conference to take stock of what has been learnt. The project has an international management team, a strong regional dimension, and an orientation to learning and dissemination.
Project Objectives
The VERIFOR project addresses one of the central issues in the EU Action Plan for Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade: how to improve governance in the forest sector through ensuring that the timber trade is restricted to legally-harvested wood and products. This raises important issues of verification, specifically the third party and other measures by which the commodity chain can be secured and the trade verified as legal. To date, international attention has been focused on the high-profile external monitoring activities of a small number of environmental NGOs. From the point of view of national ownership and sustainability, however, more complex arrangements are likely to be required, drawing on principles of audit as well as monitoring (balancing the positive with the negative and reconciling the control of deviation with the development of sustainable systems); understanding the often complex tenurial and rights dimensions of forest utilisation; and helping forest-rich countries to develop a long term vision of the role which a wellmanaged forest sector can play in processes of poverty alleviation and national development.
The project will focus on some of the key social, policy and institutional issues that deliver good governance in the forest sector. VERIFOR aims to help EU partner countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America build accountable and transparent systems to verify the legal harvest of timber, under real and inclusive national ownership. The proposal places considerable emphasis on capacity building.
The project team includes Regional Focal Points, as well as key Regional Partners to deliver training and support activities. The project will work with all segments of the national and regional policy communities, including national governments, inter-governmental fora and processes, parliaments and other democratic authorities, the judiciary, forest-based industries and national/international civil society.
The overall objective of the project is to reduce vulnerability and improve livelihoods of the rural poor in EU partner countries through the efficient and equitable use of forest resources, in line with legal provision and principles of sound management. Public governance and poverty are closely interlinked. Lack of equity and fairness in how forest resources are utilized has led to a few people deriving considerable profit from forest exploitation, whilst the majority of forest-dwelling people receive little or no benefit. It is important that improvements in governance in the forest sector that are achieved through the reduction of illegal logging are designed so as to ensure that sustainable benefits will flow to the rural poor.
The specific objective is to develop institutional options for monitoring and public oversight in the forest sector, which are country-specific, nationally-owned, socially-inclusive and orientated to efficiency and good governance. The project will provide access to knowledge about verification systems, in a non-partisan way, to national governments and their agencies responsible for monitoring legal compliance, as well as the forest industry and civil society groups of forest-rich countries. A portfolio of different options to support countries in promoting good forest governance through appropriate verification systems will also be provided to the EC and bilateral donors.
Main Activities
Activities will be clustered around three areas of work:
- Learning processes: institutional options for verification (audit, monitoring and other oversight mechanisms) will be reviewed and developed with interested parties, and learning processes facilitated.
- Policy process development: capacity will be built within national and regional partners to help them develop verification systems that enjoy wide ownership and support principles of good governance.
- Dissemination: principles and practices will be shared widely, in forms appropriate to the various stakeholders and developed with them, supported by relevant training material.
For more information please visit: http://www.verifor.org/