Expected impact

The two primary impacts expected from this project are:

• Local people in developing countries are benefiting from sustainable bioenergy development, planned and carried out in such a way that it minimises negative impacts on local livelihoods and the environment, and contributes to local income generation, livelihood improvement and to global climate change mitigation.

• National governments, civil society organisations and corporations in developing and developed countries having and are using better knowledge, information and tools for designing policies and programmes for sustainable forest-based bioenergy development.

In addition, capacities of different stakeholders being built at multiple levels through an ongoing process of research-policy engagement. At the global level, the capacity of policy makers in developing and developed countries to develop policies and instruments for sustainable and equitable bioenergy development based on scientific evidence being strengthened through strategic inputs into strategic global fora (e.g. UNFCCC, EU, IPCC).

The capacity of policy makers in developed countries, particularly in Europe, also being supported through scientific evidence on: (i) the impacts of blending policies and sustainability criteria, (ii) local social and ecological impacts, and how technologies and governance arrangements shape these among their trade and investment partners.

At national and regional levels, an iterative process of research and policy engagement (with joint analysis and scenario building) over the course of the project will ensure scientific and policy communities, civil society, and private sector actors provide inputs into research design, internalise results and utilise results to plan. Each of these groups contributes to a social learning process in which the sharing of experiences and knowledge jointly contribute to a shared understanding. Facilitated and periodic workshops and dialogues enable stakeholders to take stock of what they have learnt, to reflect, explore possible future scenarios and take necessary actions. Stakeholder engagement in the entire cycle of research will lead to the emergence of a sense of ownership in research results, thereby – with the help of facilitation and shared learning – ensuring a higher likelihood of the ownership and application of findings. Through the project, these stakeholders practice mechanisms for inclusive processes of decision making, by supporting their efforts to capture and assess trade-offs associated with diverse policy options and inputs from diverse stakeholders, and develop socially-informed policies.

Local capacity is being built directly through local consultations and feedback in the process of implementing research, and indirectly through the sharing of knowledge products and the shaping of national institutions and policies on biofuels. In select countries, the capacity of local governments is also being strengthened through shared learning and multi-stakeholder workshops, in which they are enhancing their capacity to account for economic, environmental and social factors in their planning processes, and gain skills in seeking and accepting input from the community level. It is hoped that policy engagements at diverse levels will result in longer term attitudinal and behavioural changes that will facilitate continuing attention to sustainability concerns, social impacts and community-level concerns in the future.