In light of the recent restructuring of ministries, the newly established Ministry of Economy, Environment and Agriculture of Ukraine (MEEA) initiated a meeting with the SFI-Project, 03.12.2025. During the meeting the SFI-Project informed Oleksiy Pinchuk, Director of the MEEA Department for Rural Development, about SFI-Project objectives, its general forest policy approaches, project achievements and the preliminary work plan for 2026.
Oleksiy Pinchuk notified about preliminary distribution of responsibilities in the MEEA with regard to policy decision making and administration related to forestry and forest resources protection. He also pointed to some consultancy needs in the area of forest policy, namely with regard to EU approximation of Ukraine. Volker Sasse, SFI-Project Leader of the, thanked the MEEA for the collaboration, namely for the persistent support by the Forestry Department of the MEEA predecessor Ministry (MEPR). He appealed to intensify collaboration, e.g. with regard to participation in the SFI Forest Policy Advisory Group, which meets regularly twice a month. He also invited to the upcoming meeting of the SFI-Project Steering Group (PSG), planned to be held 18.03.2026, possibly in Berlin.
Manfred Fischer, Director- Bilateral Cooperation Programme BMLEH – Forestry at GFA, informed about the “Joint Declaration of Intend” between the German Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Regional Identity (BMLEH) and the MEEA. The signature of this document is scheduled for 17.01.2026 in the framework of the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA). This Joint Declaration is an important prerequisite for the SFI-Project registration, required by Ukrainian legislation.
During the closing of the meeting Sasse mentioned about some opportunities: “The merging of the administration of timber harvesting and forest resource protection into one ministry can be seen as a contribution to multifunctionality, being one of the major SFI-Project objectives. Further the ongoing coordination of international technical assistance projects – as recently initiated by State Forest Resources Agency – is very important for the successful implementation of the SFI-Project.“ Sasse also pointed to the enormous challenges, caused by the Russian war, which impacts on human resources, namely in forest policy, administration and science as well as technical cooperation, devastatingly.
