Project activities

Project activities are implemented in four interrelated working packages - WPs (coordinated by four different project partners together forming the Project Management Team) to address the project objective to develop broadly supported governance mechanisms that manage the consequences of VPA legal timber legality standards on local livelihoods and to strengthen the capacity of stakeholders to (re)negotiate institutional arrangements for sustainable resource use in Ghana and Indonesia:

WP 1 - New (participatory) tools for valuing the provision of goods and services from forested landscapes and developing different scenarios for optimising forested landscape use in the context of VPA implementation: research is conducted to obtain information on the status of different landscape units (in Ghana) and the effect on the livelihood of rural people, including their role in timber production. More information on (available and quantified) forest goods and services will allow for the development of more informed scenarios incorporating the implications of the VPA for forest communities’ livelihood considerations, and will bring the competing claims between a global demand for “legally harvested timber” and subsistence needs of forest-dependent local communities to the fore.

WP 2 - Improved governance mechanisms to manage the consequences of VPA -TLS implementation for local forest-related livelihood strategies: more reliable information (bullet 1) will contribute to improved dialogue amongst all stakeholders competing for scarce forestry resources in both Ghana and Indonesia, and facilitate the assessment of the consequences of the VPA process on local livelihoods of forest-dependent communities. Research will be conducted and policy-relevant papers will be produced on how more and reliable information can contribute to improved governance in the forestry sector, meaning how competing claims on the forest, from global to local, can be reconciled with livelihood strategies of the poor.

WP 3 - Improved capacities for constructive stakeholder dialogue on local and district level, fed by ongoing VPA policy dialogue at national level: dialogue can be improved as a result of reliable information (bullet 1) and an enabling policy environment (bullet 2) but also requires skilful facilitation. Capacity building of process facilitators that started in 2008 will continue.  In addition a learning-oriented participatory monitoring mechanism will be developed to measure change towards planned project impact.

WP 4 - Broadened level of information among a wider group of stakeholders in VPA processes - all intended results mentioned above can only be effectively used by the project partners and stakeholders when available information is packaged and disseminated to the need of the respective stakeholders.

This section and its sub-pages gives an overview of current research, policy advisory and capacity building activities. Final products such as research proposals, papers and final research reports can be found on the publication page.

Project output in terms of reporting on capacity building activities, preliminary findings and policy debates are summarised in one-page leaflets and can be found here.