In recent years, we have seen increased momentum around financing for Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local communities’ rights, climate, and conservation action. With the historic IPLC Pledge made at CoP26 by the Forest Tenure Funders Group expiring in 2025, CoP30 in Brazil will have a heightened focus on these communities and presents a strategic opportunity to promote a new pledge that’s more responsive to communities’ feedback and lessons from the prior 5 years, and clearly links with impacts on the ground. 

To support this momentum, RRI is using the New York Climate Week and other upcoming global platforms on climate and conservation to both inform and promote a new, more ambitious funding pledge for Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples.

What is the Pledge We Want?

Any new pledge for Indigenous and local communities must address the following current challenges with funding for community rights in the climate and conservation arenas:

  •  Despite increased donor commitments to prioritize direct funding to community rightsholder organizations, little of this funding reaches these organizations directly.
  • Most current funding mechanisms are not “fit for purpose,” meaning they are not responsive enough to the needs of communities; not gender-inclusive; lack flexibility, transparency, and mutual accountability for donors and beneficiaries; lack a long-term vision for addressing diverse community needs; and are neither timely nor accessible to a large number of community-led organizations.
  • Direct funding for Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community women’s organizations is still inadequate and data on this funding is sparse.  For example, while 32% of all IP and LC tenure and forest management funding from 2011 to 2020 included at least one gender-related keyword, just 18% included language suggesting gender equality or women’s rights or governance.

    “The Pledge We Want” must put at the center of climate and conservation funding approaches the 1.8 billion Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples who are pivotal in the fight for a more resilient planet.

    So what do we need to make a pledge like this happen?

      • We urgently need principles that can guide, scale up, and add effectiveness to donor support over the next 5 years. These principles must be co-designed and led by rightsholders themselves from bottom up.
      • Donors must continue to collaborate through initiatives like RRI’s Path to Scale and support the next generation of the Indigenous and local community-led global movement for rights by supporting their own funding mechanisms. 
      • Donors must prioritize fit for purpose funding for community women’s organizations that have historically been excluded from decision-making processes in the design and implementation of programs and financial instruments that affect them. See Our Call to Action to learn why this is critical.
      • We must revolutionize climate and conservation finance by supporting IP- and LC-led funding mechanisms such as CLARIFI, which can provide a trusted bridge to deploy funds to frontline communities guided by their own priorities.  

      To promote #ThePledgeWeWant, RRI’s key engagements during Climate Week are here. They include:

      • The Good Funding Hub, a 3-day space co-hosted with Maliasili and Synchronicity Earth, where discussions between international donors, community leaders, and civil society actors will interrogate current funding practices in the conservation, climate, and community rights arenas.
      • The Annual Meeting of RRI’s Path to Scale initiative and launch of a *new* report with recommendations on localization of aid for USAID and other bilateral institutions.
      • A celebration of the achievements of CLARIFI, RRI’s Indigenous and community-led funding mechanism, through a unique partnership to support community rights in the Congo Basin.
      • Various engagements by RRI’s leadership at discussions bringing together international philanthropists, climate finance and conservation institutions, and community rights advocates. Learn more about them.

      Helpful reading 

      Check out RRI’s resources to support donors, financial mechanisms, intermediaries, and communities interested in working together to scale-up direct funding to secure the land and resource rights, conservation, and livelihoods of Indigenous and local communities.

      • Funding with Purpose – A study to inform donor support for Indigenous and local community rights, climate, and conservation
      • Path to Scale Dashboard: State of Funding for IPs, LCs, and ADPs in Tropical Forested Countries (2011–2023)
      • Building Bridges: Innovations and Approaches to Increase Financing to Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples and Local Communities for Climate and Conservation Goals