RUSSIA FOREST FIRE RESPONSE PROJECT

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The development objective of the Forest Fire Response Project for the Russian Federation is to improve forest fire prevention and management and to enhance sustainable forest management. Furthermore, the project will contribute to raising public awareness and education standards in forestry issues in general, with specific reference to forest fires prevention/control and forest governance issues. There are three components to the project. The first component of the project is enhancing forest fire prevention, management, and control. This component aims to improve the effectiveness of forest fire prevention and management by: (i) improving the capacity for early detection and quick response to fight forest fires, and (ii) reducing the number of fires of human origin through awareness raising and environmental education programs. Early fire detection is recognized as a key element in improving protection of forests from fires. Fire prevention and environmental education will be focused on children and youth as a means to encourage long-term behavior change. The second component of the project is building forestry and Protected Area (PA) management capacity. This component will increase forest and PA management capacity and help address key policy and management issues that either create perverse incentives or exacerbate conditions contributing to the extent and intensity of fires in the extensive forest landscape and protected areas. The third component of the project is project management will finance the operating costs of a Project Implementation Unit (PIU), which will undertake project management functions for both components one and two. The PIU will provide support to the core implementing agencies (Federal Forestry Agency (FFA) and Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE)) in project management, including procurement, financial management, project coordination, reporting, and monitoring. The PIU has been selected on a competitive basis by a committee formed by the implementing agencies, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economic Development. The PIU will act on the basis of agency agreements on behalf of and per instruction from the FFA and MNRE.