The European Union's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan is an ambitious strategy to fight illegal logging and its negative impacts. The FLEGT theory of change is based on three types of FLEGT actions, namely timber production, demand, and global timber trade standards and dynamics. FLEGT works in more than a dozen countries through Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA). Very few studies exist on the global or country-level impact of the FLEGT-VPA process. We sought to understand the contribution of FLEGT-VPAs in three countries (Cameroon, Ghana, and Indonesia) at different stages of VPA implementation. A uniform methodology was applied to provide cross-cutting results on perceived changes directly linked to the FLEGT expected impacts while allowing for contextual specificities. This approach is designed to be easily replicable in all VPA countries and directly linked to the FLEGT global theory of change. This commentary presents our findings and their implications for policy makers.

欧洲联盟的森林执法，治理和贸易（FLEGT）行动计划是一项雄心勃勃的战略，旨在打击非法采伐及其负面影响。FLEGT变革理论基于FLEGT行为的三种类型，即木材生产，需求以及全球木材贸易标准和动态。FLEGT通过自愿合作协议（VPA）在十几个国家/地区工作。关于FLEGT-VPA流程对全球或国家层面的影响的研究很少。我们试图了解FLEGT-VPA在VPA实施的不同阶段在三个国家（喀麦隆，加纳和印度尼西亚）的贡献。应用了统一的方法来提供与FLEGT预期影响直接相关的感知变化的跨领域结果，同时考虑到上下文的特殊性。这种方法旨在在所有VPA国家中轻松复制，并与FLEGT全球变革理论直接关联。本评论介绍了我们的发现及其对决策者的影响。