This project was part of the second phase of the ENPI East FLEG II Program, which ran from 2013 until the end of 2016. The overall goal of the Program was to fight illegal logging and corruption by supporting countries at strengthening their forest governance through, for instance, improving implementation of relevant international processes and enhancing their forest policy, etc..
Previous work related to the FLEG Program has shown that not all stakeholders perceive illegal logging as a serious issue. Awareness raising was therefore a critical building block for the success of the Program.
The purpose of this specific project was to measure changes in awareness and perceptions of illegal logging and other FLEG related issues among relevant stakeholder groups in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine.
Project objective and process
The objective of this project was to implement surveys to measure the baseline and the changes in the following aspects within forest governance:
- Key stakeholders knowledge of forest law enforcement and governance issues;
- Stakeholders perceptions of forest governance issues;
- Decision makers’ awareness of modern technology and information to improve forest law enforcement and governance.
A total of seven countries were part of this project, which was funded by the World Bank. Preferred by Nature (formerly known as NEPCon) had the responsibility to conduct the survey in four out of the seven countries, namely Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Georgia.
The survey was carried out twice, in the beginning and in the end of the second phase of the FLEG II Program. For Preferred by Nature, each round consisted of approximately 400 interviews. The purpose of the first survey was to create the baseline and to inform the stakeholders about the project activities. The second survey collected a final set of data to measure any changes in awareness and perception among the stakeholder groups.
The survey was conducted on a regional, national and sub-national level. The interviewed stakeholders included: state forest agencies, environment ministries, educational institutions, industry, media, civil society and indigenous communities.
Survey outcome
The results from the surveys helped the FLEG II Program team to target interventions and evaluate the success of the Program, so that lessons learned could be applied in other contexts. The measured objective indicators were central to help create the conditions for sustainable forest management in the target countries.
This survey generated highly useful information that served both the Program in its implementation and evaluation stages, as well as the countries themselves as they worked to improve forest governance, build capacity, and promote buy-in across a diverse set of stakeholders. Furthermore, the survey results provided points of comparison for forest law enforcement and governance initiatives, lead by other countries and international institutions.
Feel free to contact us if you wish to engage or learn more about this project.