Strategic planning and operational programming need to be based on adequate informational basis. Regular evaluation and systematic use of evaluation findings in the planning and prioritisation of activities has recently become a practice within the European Commission's Services. At the same time, assessing domestic and international impacts of government support measures has been high on the agenda of international organisations concerned with promotion of efficient and sustainable patterns of economic growth and development. There is wide consensus globally and in Europe on the need to create "financial mechanisms to develop new markets for environmental services" (UNFF-3) and the use of "innovative economic instruments for achieving forest-related goals" (MCPFE-4). In this respect, evaluations of recent public interventions in forestry may provide useful information for designing future strategies and related implementation tools. The International conference "Evaluating Forestry Incentive and Assistance Programmes in Europe - Challenges to Improve Policy Effectiveness", arranged in October 2004 in Warsaw, Poland, aimed to provide forum for state-of-the-art discussions in the field of forest policy evaluation and analysis. It has also served dissemination of the EFFE project results (Evaluating Financing of Forestry in Europe), discussion of further research needs as well as facilitation of future research co-operation and networking. The conference gathered policy decision-makers, representatives of forestry administration, private and public forest owners, social and environmental NGOs, as well as forest policy and economics researchers.
