Forest Institutions in Transition: Experiences and Lessons from Eastern Europe

Abstract

This paper summarizes the results from a study of institutional reforms of forest organizations in transition economies in Eastern Europe, and posits the conditions for successful reform. The paper points out that the key challenge for forest organizations in the region has been how to transform financially secure forest organizations from centrally planned institutions with strong regulatory functions, to organizations with roles which are fundamentally service delivery ones and for which public expenditures have to be mobilized from increasingly constrained sources. In particular, the paper concludes that success depends on clarity in the definition of forest institutions' service delivery responsibilities.

Keywords: Forest organizations, Institutional reform, transition economies, forest policy

JEL Classification: O13, Q23, Q28