International Forestry Resources and Institutions

Collaborating Resource Centers

• Bolivia - Center for the Study of Economic and Social Reality
• Uganda - Makerere University
• Kenya - Kenya Forestry Research Institute
• Tanzania - Sokoine University of Agriculture
• Thailand - Asian Institute of Technology
• India - Institute for Research and Development, Nagpur
• Mexico - National Autonomous University of Mexico
• Nepal - ForestAction
• Guatemala - Universidad del Valle de Guatemala
• Colombia - Pontifical Xavierian University and the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute

  Goals

• determine how to change processes leading to deforestation in many countries of the world;
• assess the nature of tradeoffs among forest conservation, livelihoods promotion, and carbon sequestration
• analyze the role of institutions and policies in promoting better forest outcomes

• conduct baseline studies;
• measure change over time in forest conditions and in local governance structures; and
• share information with pertinent and interested colleagues.

• it is composed of a network of Collaborating Research Centers that utilize a common research methodology and database that includes a diverse array of variables taken from the environmental and social sciences;
• the design of the IFRI research instruments is based on the Institutional Analysis and Development framework and previous theoretical and empirical studies. The IAD framework, developed by colleagues at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, provides a unique way for researchers to transcend disciplinary boundaries;
• IFRI focuses and collects data on institutional, social, and ecological variables which can be stored in a single IFRI database, and analyzed to understand the inter-relationships among social and ecological processes and outcomes.