FAO-EU FLEGT Programme

Summary: 

Organizational profile: 
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. It was founded in October 1945.
 
The FAO-EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Programme seeks to reduce and eventually eliminate illegal logging. With the support of its donors, the FAO-EU FLEGT Programme funds projects created by governments, civil society and private sector organizations in Latin America, Africa and Asia to improve forest governance. The Programme works in support of the European Commission’s Action Plan on FLEGT to promote the legal production and consumption of timber by granting funds to projects, and assisting them at all stages from the original design through to the final outcome. Decreasing illegal logging contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals by alleviating poverty (SDG 1), ensuring food security (SDG 2), mitigating climate change (SDG 13) and managing forests sustainably (SDG 15). 
 
There are two types of available assistance - Direct Assistance and Call for Proposals. Direct Assistance can be used as a flexible financing tool to respond to immediate, specific requests connected with Voluntary Partnership Agreement* (VPA) and non-VPA national strategy and needs, such as the provision of training and technical assistance. Calls for proposals provide a competitive mechanism open to all stakeholders (government, civil society and private sector organizations). The Programme will periodically issue calls for proposals to solicit project ideas that can contribute to the achievement of national forest governance and other FLEGT-related priorities in both VPA and selected non-VPA countries. The Call for Proposals mechanism can be slightly different in the case of VPA and non-VPA countries, and can vary year by year.
 
Financing Instrument: Grants
 
Project scale: 
Direct Assistance is up to EUR 50,000, and requests exceeding EUR 50 000 will be considered on a case-by-case basis and presented to the Steering Committee for a “no-objection”. 
There is no information on the project scale of Call for Proposals on the FAP-EU FLEGT website.
 
Recipient countries regions/country groups: Latin America, Africa and Asia 
 
Recipient categories: GOV, NGOs, Businesses

Eligibility Criteria: 
Direct Assistance is available to governments and private sector organizations. 
Calls for proposals are open to all stakeholders (government, civil society and private sector organizations).
 
Application guidelines: 
The Direct Assistance mechanism largely follows the same process in both VPA countries and countries not engaged in VPA:
1.    Project identification: direct assistance requests are developed through a collaborative dialogue between FAO, the relevant government agency, the European Union representatives and the beneficiary organization. The Programme will be responsible for final approval and oversight of Direct Assistance requests.
2.    Submission of Direct Assistance proposals:  after the identification phase, interested proponents submit a short proposal to the Programme Management Unit (PMU).
 
The process of Calls for Projects typically involves the following steps:
1.    Information phase: the Programme Management Unit (PMU) releases the Call for Proposals guidelines and disseminates them through formal and informal channels. Information is also shared on the Programme’s website;
2.    Launch of the Call for proposals: calls for proposals are periodically launched and open to all stakeholders in VPA and non-VPA countries (depending on availability of resources);
3.    Evaluation process: the proposals are reviewed and scored by an expert panel. The evaluation may follow a two-phase approach: first a call for concept note and then submission of a full proposal; or be based on a single proposal submission with internal screening prior to expert panel review. Based on the results of the evaluation, the proposals recommended for funding are presented to the Steering Committee for final endorsement. The donors of the Programme, EU Delegations and EFI FLEGT Facility staff are contacted to provide feedback on the proposals, especially with regard to their consistency with the country context and their relevance to the priorities identified through the country’s VPA roadmap.
4.    Selection and implementation of projects: following the evaluation process, projects selected for funding are notified. Projects only become operational following the signing of a Letter of Agreement (LoA) between the parties.

* Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) are a central element of the EU's strategy in the fight against illegal logging. A VPA is a bilateral trade agreement between the EU and a timber-exporting country outside the EU.
A VPA aims:

  • to guarantee that any wood exported from a timber-producing country to the EU comes from legal sources
  • to help the partner country stop illegal logging by improving forest governance and regulation

VPAs are voluntary for timber-exporting countries. However, once a VPA has entered into force, it is legally binding on both sides.
Under the VPA, the timber-producing country develops systems to verify that its timber exports are legal, and the EU agrees to accept only licensed imports from that country.
 

Publication Date
Sunday, 27 March 2022
Applicable location
Americas
Africa
Asia
Topic/Theme
Forest law enforcement, governance and trade (FLEGT)
Database
Financing opportunities