Higher Education Cooperation for Forest Landscape Restoration and Sustainable Livelihoods in Bangladesh and Vietnam (FORSU)
FORSU is a 3-year capacity building project which is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The project includes two European Programme universities: the University of Helsinki (coordinating HEI) & the University of Freiburg, and 2 Partner universities in Bangladesh: Rangamati Science and Technology University & Patuakhali Science and Technology University; and 3 Partner universities in Vietnam: Hue University, Tay Nguyen University & Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry.
Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) emerged as a key approach in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-30), which aims to scale-up restoration of degraded ecosystems to combat the climate crisis while enhancing and protecting livelihoods, food security, water, and biodiversity. Global support to strengthen and fund forest and other ecosystem restoration faces a major challenge: the mismatch between the opportunities for restoration and the capacity (knowledge, skills) needed to support it. Bangladesh and Vietnam are among the most vulnerable countries to climate change, and have a range of policies and programmes to promote and scale-up FLR. Their higher education systems are however, unable to produce graduates that fulfil the domestic or international needs related to FLR.
Our general objective is to strengthen the capacity of partner HEIs to contribute to well-functioning, relevant and accessible FLR education to meet the needs of graduates, employers, and other stakeholders, for the broader benefit of the environment and society. The project builds on previous EU partner experience in capacity building projects in Asia to improve accessibility, internationalization, and modernization of partner HEI’s FLR-related capacity by transferring experience, competencies, and good practices.