On November 24-25, 2009, PROFOR, the World Bank, and the European Forestry Institute's East Asia Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Program co-hosted a workshop on Improving FLEG in the Mekong Region (Vietnam, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Thailand) in Hanoi, Vietnam.

FLEG has been an important economic and environmental issue in Vietnam and other Mekong Region countries and is being increasingly addressed in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) policy dialogues. In addition, the changing regulatory framework in the European Union and the United States regarding requirements on the import of wood products raises the importance of the implementation of FLEG in the Mekong Region and for government, industry and other stakeholders to determine how to address this paradigm shift in trade policy.

This workshop is part of a PROFOR-funded Forest Governance and Law Enforcement in the Mekong Region activity which supports diagnostics, capacity-building, and policy and institutional reforms, through regional and national activities, that will directly address the causes and symptoms of forest crimes and improve forest governance generally.