Fafo Foundation
| Forskningsstiftelsen Fafo |
The Fafo Research Foundation, also known as the Fafo Foundation or just Fafo (Norwegian: Forskningsstiftelsen Fafo), is a Norwegian research foundation, owning a research institute: The Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research. The institute are conducting social research both nationally in Norway and internationally. Fafo has offices in Oslo and Beijing.
Fafo was founded by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) in 1982 and was reorganised as an independent research foundation in 1993 with contributions from the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees and six major Norwegian companies (Orkla Group, Umoe, Elkem, Coop Norge, Sparebank1 Gruppen and Telenor). The first director of Fafo was Terje Rød Larsen (1982–1993). Under his leadership, Fafo became increasingly involved in international peace research and politics, particularly in the Middle East, from the late 1980s, and the institute played a central role in the negotiations that culminated in the Oslo Accords. The origin of the Oslo Accords can be traced back to a research project initiated by Fafo in the Palestinian territories, and the negotiations that led to the accords were hosted by Fafo in Oslo. Terje Rød Larsen would subsequently become a UN Under-Secretary-General responsible for coordinating the Middle East peace process.
In July 2008 the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made a deal with the help of the Norwegian minister of environment and development Erik Solheim with Fafo to use some of its professors and researchers in their school. Praising Fafo as an "internationally very famous research institution", a representative of the school said China wanted to learn from Norwegian approaches to welfare state and environmental protection.
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