At the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26), a group of bilateral donors and philanthropic funders launched a Pledge to provide 1.7 billion USD between 2021-2025 to advance tenure rights and forest guardianship of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in tropical and subtropical forests. The funds are taken from the overall allocations for Official Development Assistance (ODA) and will be directed at ODA-eligible countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The Pledge is in recognition of the crucial role of indigenous peoples and local communities in protecting and managing these forests, while only a small fraction of climate-related funding reaches these peoples and communities. The Pledge aims to ensure that indigenous peoples and local communities receive a fairer share of climate-related ODA.
The funding under the Pledge to support Tenure Rights and Forest Guardianship of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities is directed at:
- Channeling support to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including through capacity building and financial support for group activities, collective governance structures and management systems, and sustainable livelihoods
- Activities to secure, strengthen and protect Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ land and resource rights, including, but not limited to, support to community-level tenure rights mapping and registration work, support to national land and forest tenure reform processes and their implementation, and support to conflict resolution mechanisms
The donor commitments under the Pledge will not lead to the constitution of a new fund or pooled donor funding. Individual donors will decide how they allocate and spend their contributions to the Pledge. Donors to the Pledge acknowledge that delivering on the commitments will take time as it is not easy to shift donor funding modalities quickly. However, donors are encouraged to collaborate on how to increase the effectiveness of their spend and are committed to progressively improving the quality of their support. For coordination, a global ‘Funders Group’ has been established, including both bilateral and philanthropic donors. This Funders Group will meet quarterly to support progress towards achieving the Pledge commitments, including to maintain global momentum to further increase the scale and improve the quality of climate finance for indigenous peoples and local communities.
Read more about the Pledge:
Joint donor statement at COP26: Joint Donor Statement
Update from the Funders Group: Donor update September 2022
Forest Tenure Pledge: Annual Report 2021-2022
Webpage of the Funders Group: IPLC Forest Tenure Donor Pledge
