During this podcast, Tarun Bathija interviews Michael Kleine (IUFRO-SPDC Project Coordinator) to get a better understanding of the International Union of Forest Research Organization's - Special Program for Developing Countries.

The mission of the Special Programme for Developing Countries (in short IUFRO-SPDC) is "to expand and foster forest research capacity in developing and economically disadvantaged countries".

According to the programme's strategy for 2007 to 2010 the IUFRO-SPDC activities cover the
following five priority areas:

Enhancing core scientific competence;
Improving information management and dissemination;
Enhancing science contribution to policy processes;
Promoting communication and multi-stakeholder learning processes,
Providing institutional support to regional forest research networks.