About the programmeThe EU-FAO Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Programme (EU FAO FLEGT Programme) is a four year initiative funded by the European Union and implemented by FAO. The EU FAO FLEGT Programme is a follow-on programme to the ACP-FLEGT Support Programme, began on May 1, 2012 and will end on April 30, 2016. Our overall objective is to improve governance in the forest sector through improvement of policy, legal and regulatory frameworks; increasing capacity of civil society, private sector and forest sector staff to manage forest resource; enforcement of forestry legal frameworks; and knowledge sharing on the FLEGT process. The programme has two components: - Projects support in eligible countries; and
- Information services.
1) Project support We provide assistance to local stakeholder groups in developing countries to put the European Union (EU) Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan into practice. More specifically, we support: - countries engaged in the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) process by funding activities that address locally defined priorities; and
- other developing countries that are developing law enforcement and governance strategies that address issues defined in the EU FLEGT Action Plan.
2) Information services The programme aims to increase the availability of FLEGT-related information and knowledge and experiences among local stakeholder groups by supporting actions to improve understanding of the EU FLEGT Action Plan and the FLEGT process more generally. The programme supports initiatives from three local stakeholder groups: - Government institutions
- Civil society organizations
- Private sector organizations
The programme seeks to support stakeholder groups by: - providing opportunities for sharing information and/or exchanging experiences;
- contributing to national or regional forestry programmes and/or FLEGT-related initiatives;
- building local ownership for initiatives proposed to the programme;
- increasing participation, partnerships and communication among the three types of stakeholder groups;
- promoting long-term sustainable outcomes;
- developing innovative and replicable systems.
For a greater understanding of the EU FLEGT Action Plan and the FLEGT process, please visit our FLEGT library. | 
