Only 7% of $1.7B COP 26 pledge is going directly to Indigenous groups

Only 7% of funds delivered so far to fulfill a $1.7 billion pledge to support the tenure rights and forest guardianship of Indigenous peoples and local communities, or IP and LC, have gone directly to those groups, according to a new “progress report” tracking the philanthropic commitments of funders who signed the pledge at last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Meanwhile, around 50% of the delivered funds have been channeled through intermediaries such as international nongovernmental organizations — prompting the chairs of the funders’ group to call for increased direct funding via mechanisms led or governed by Indigenous and local groups. Government and Indigenous leaders also called for all funders to address the situation by providing them with more climate finance in general.

“IP and LC live at the center of a global climate and biodiversity crisis. There is strong evidence that their solutions to climate mitigation and protecting nature are highly effective, but they only receive a tiny fraction of the climate finance that they need to protect forests,” Zac Goldsmith, U.K. minister for the commonwealth, overseas territories, energy, climate and environment  at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, said in a statement.

The U.K. chaired the pledge funders working group that released the report Sunday tracking the commitments so far from 25 government and private funders that signed on to the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Forest Tenure Pledge at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, or COP 26, in Glasgow last November. The five-year pledge aims to protect the world’s remaining intact forests, about 36% of which is on Indigenous people’s lands.

A core aim of the pledge is to increase direct funding for Indigenous and local communities fighting climate change and support their efforts to win or clarify their ownership of forest lands globally. A “growing body of evidence shows that Indigenous Peoples are the most effective guardians of biodiverse tropical forests,” according to a 2021 statement on the pledge.

The report showed that by the end of 2021, donors with the Forest Tenure Funders Group had given more than $320 million, or about one-fifth of the total pledge amount so far.

Climate finance with its “long-established systems and beliefs” also must become more inclusive of Indigenous and local communities, said Levi Sucre, co-chair of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, which has been advising the pledge funders group on how they might direct their giving.

“The world’s top climate scientists have called for strengthening the rights and the role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. We are a climate risk mitigation strategy, and a just solution for addressing climate change,” he said in a statement.

There will be a session on the role “Indigenous Traditional Knowledge” can play in climate technology at COP 27 on Tuesday. The U.N. will also host related online discussions throughout the conference on its Local Communities and Indigenous People’s Platform web portal.

‘Lower than our partners would expect’

The pledge itself did not give guidelines on how much should go directly to IP and LC groups.

Ford Foundation served as vice chair of the funders' working group, and the allocation of its own pledge demonstrates the difficulties of getting money directly to Indigenous and locally led organizations quickly. Ford has delivered $68 million of its $100 million commitment so far. But the foundation said that only 17% of its own delivered funds have gone directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities.

That is “lower than our partners would expect,” the foundation said in a recent update. 

The lower-than-desired amount is partially because “a large portion” of Ford’s IPLC pledge funding came from the social bond initiative it launched in 2020 to stabilize social justice organizations dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. A goal of that program was to spend $1 billion in grant-making dollars every year, which means the money must be moved quickly, Kevin Currey, Ford’s program officer for natural resources and climate change, told Devex.

Moving money that fast typically means directing it to intermediary organizations with established connections within communities that later distribute it to smaller groups instead of providing it directly to Indigenous and local organizations, he added.  

Ford wants to provide a higher percentage to IPLCs in the future and believes working with Indigenous and local leaders to set up their own intermediary organizations to distribute funds will help, Currey said.

Breaking down allocations so far

Other pledge funders include Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Christensen Fund, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Good Energies Foundation, Oak Foundation, Sobrato Philanthropies, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Three additional donors — Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, Bobolink Foundation, and International Conservation Fund of Canada — also recently joined the funders group.

There is no central fund or allocation mechanism for the pledge. Each individual donor decides how to spend their contributions, though the working group helps coordinate their efforts and tracks them with an annual report. 

Of the more than $320 million of the pledge that donors provided so far, the largest share,  about 39%, was directed to Latin American projects, 16% went to African projects, and 7% to Southeast Asia.

The Hewlett Foundation has provided $5 million so far to support Indigenous and locally led organizations to combat threats to their lands, rights, or “governance in the context of carbon markets.” Low-income nations have largely been excluded from potentially lucrative carbon markets.  

Hewlett also is backing a joint initiative between Rainforest Foundation’s U.S. and Norwegian offices to help Indigenous and local organizations “strengthen their ability to respond to carbon markets and to provide resources to promote more equitable outcomes in the development and implementation of market policies.”

The foundation also is financially contributing to a regranting fund started by the Climate and Land Use Alliance, or CLUA, and sponsored by Re:wild — formerly Global Wildlife Conservation — that aims to help Indigenous and local peoples benefit from carbon market programs, Hewlett said. Re:wild is currently seeking a director for that fund.

Packard Foundation also provided $2.5 million to the CLUA and Re:wild fund and provided another $5 million to CLUA to help create more locally controlled funds to support Indigenous and local climate efforts.

The Oak Foundation provided a $5 million grant for Indigenous tenure security and territorial governance initiatives in the Amazon region.

Notable among the private funders was Nia Tero’s $13.7 million contribution directly to Indigenous eoples and “trusted allies.” The U.S.-based nonprofit’s mission is to work with Indigenous communities around the world to protect them and their lands.

Included among government donors was a $150 million contribution from Norway to Indigenous climate efforts in Latin America.