• Interreg PROGRESS: PROmoting the Governance of Regional Ecosystem ServiceS is a 2019-2023-Interreg Europe project, focussed on improving the contribution of the ecosystem services concept to regional and national policies.
• Six Action Plans, one in each partner country is now establishing specific improvements in public policies for ecosystem services, to be implemented in 2022-2023.
• PROGRESS is developing different communication and dissemination formats to make its results widely available to relevant stakeholders, public officials and decision-makers.

PROGRESS is a 2019-2023 Interreg Europe project funded by the ERDF with 1,4 M €. Its aim is to tackle Operational Plans at regional or national level and other strategies dealing with the protection and valuing biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES). The approach is based on policy learning and capacity building of the partner organizations and relevant stakeholders of the concerned policy subsystems under 4 strands:

1) Measurement of cost & benefit of ES,

2) Integration of ES into policy and Planning;

3) Innovative payments for ecosystem services;

4) Landscape sustainability governance.

Strands 1-3 have developed in 2020-2021, strand 4 currently in progress.

The final results of the 1st phase of the project (2019-2022) are being prepared in an Action Plan by each PROGRESS partner to contribute to the improvement and impact of ecosystem services contribution to National and Regional public policies. The actions proposed are based on the learnings and good practices identified over the last two years.

The Action Plan is a document providing details on how the lessons learnt and exchange of experience from the interregional cooperation will be exploited in order to improve the regional policy instruments. The Action Plan specifies the nature of the actions to be implemented, their time frame, stakeholders involved, the costs and funding sources.

The six draft Action Plans are now under discussion with Interreg Europe Secretariat before their formal approval by each responsible authority. PROGRESS Action Plans will be implemented during the 2nd phase of the project, lasting until its end in July 2023.

The official website of the project: https://projects2014-2020.interregeurope.eu/progress/

More information: buni.rtu.lv/interreg-eu-progress