Together with food, materials and energy, agriculture and forestry contribute to the production of a wide range of public goods. Examples are landscape, biodiversity, water quality and availability, soil fertility, climate stability, flood and fire protection, food security, animal welfare and rural vitality, as well as the management of the majority of land areas in the EU.
Some of these goods are of primary importance for the environment and society welfare. However, as there is no market for such goods, they are often provided in quantity lower than socially optimal.
The objective of the PROVIDE project is to develop a conceptual basis, evidence, tools and improved incentive and policy options to support the “smart” provision of public goods by the EU agriculture and forestry ecosystems. PROVIDE will consider a wide range of public goods and legislations, and will address the issue in a multi-scale framework, working both at the EU level and at case study level in thirteen Countries of the EU.
The project will first perform a mapping and inventory of public goods and the mechanisms producing such goods, allowing to identify ’hotspots’ for mechanisms and policy development. Around these ’hotspots’, the project will then value different public goods and explore value transferability across several regions and ecosystems. Next, to meet a smart production of public goods, consistent with the current needs of productivity, bioeconomy strategy and rural development, innovative policy tools and mechanisms will be comparatively evaluated. The outcomes of these activities will feed information into a framework and toolbox.
The practical results of the project will be: a renewed (“un-packed”) conceptualization of the notion of public goods; an operational framework to support the smart provision of public goods; a toolbox putting together an inventory of options, operational means for valuation and evaluation, and a selection of policy/sector mechanisms; a consolidated and long-lasting community of knowledge and practice.
The project PROVIDE will mobilise 14 partners from 13 different countries in the EU.
Provide Horizon2020 project
Project
WP1 – COORDINATION AND MANAGEMENT
WP1 will provide effective coordination and management of the Project. Management activities will be organised by the Coordinator, and carried out with the assistance of the Project Management Team. To accomplish PROVIDE overall objectives, the Coordinator will chair and contribute to the implementation of the activities of the Steering Committee (composed by the WP leaders), as well as chairing the General Assembly.
Documents
WP2 – INNOVATIVE CO-CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE – ENSURING COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH AND DISSEMINATION
WP2 targets objective 1 of the project, which is to create a deliberative platform for engaging stakeholders in the ‘unpacking’ of the notion of PG and the co-construction and evaluation of the research process and its policy outcomes. Behind WP2 there is the idea that the integration of different ‘knowledges’ and values together with specialist knowledge results in policy outcomes which are more efficient and socially acceptable. Thus, stakeholders have a key role both in designing the research process and questions and in providing input to answer these questions and finding solutions.
Documents
WP3 – INVENTORY AND MAPPING OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CONDITIONSPRACTICES AND PUBLIC GOODS PRODUCTION
WP3 aims at synthesizing and mapping the demand and supply of public goods from agriculture and forestry, its driving factors and the role of location conditions. Hot-spots of public good demand and supply will be highlighted and analyzed, as they provide exemplars of good and bad practices to be investigated at Case Study Region level. The mapping will provide a background for the further investigation towards associated values and instruments that aim at balancing supply and demand.
Documents
WP4 – IMPROVED VALUATION OF PUBLIC GOODS
WP4 develops and tests improved tools for valuing costs and benefits of PG in support to policy and other governance mechanisms. This includes the selection, the adaptation, and the testing of valuation and scale approaches for public goods. Moreover, WP4 also analyse the determinants of values in view of using values for mechanism evaluation and tests if value transferability is feasible considering different environmental and social factors. All this information will be formulated in terms of guidelines as input for policy making.
Documents
WP5 – FORMULATING AND EVALUATING GOVERNANCE MECHANISMS FOR DELIVERY OF PUBLIC GOODS
WP5 targets the design and the assessment of improved applicable governance mechanisms for the smart delivery of PGs and avoidance of PBs. We identify and investigate private and public governance mechanisms (including market mechanisms) suitable to provide appropriate incentives and policy options for the smart delivery/avoidance of PG. Moreover, we analyse the practicability and transferability of governance strategies at programming and EU level. All these results will be summarized in guidelines for practical implementation of governance instruments for PG delivery.
Documents
WP6 – EVOLVING FRAMEWORK AND TOOLBOX
WP6 directs and collects the outcome of the project activities into a practical instrument to support policy making; it will include a (theory based) conceptual framework, mapping/inventory of public goods and mechanisms, toolbox of quantification/ evaluation instruments, and a toolbox of policy instruments.
Documents
