Paris, 23 June 2023 - The massive gap between the critical role of Indigenous Peoples as leading custodians of nature & climate and the scarce funding they receive is not only unjust, but also hampers progress on global sustainability.
World leaders wrapped up in Paris a first summit to build a new global financing architecture, which presented a pivotal opportunity to refocus the climate finance debate and foster a more inclusive international financial system.
Recognizing the imperative of leveraging global finance towards Indigenous Peoples to match their critical ecological roles and services, UNDP was tasked with the facilitation of a thematic segment titled "Including Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in the New Global Financing Pact”, convened by the global citizen platform Avaaz and hosted at the OECD headquarters. The interlocutors – Gilles Kleitz (Executive Director, French Agency for International Development), Dario Mejía (Chairperson, UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues) and Josep Garí (UNDP Climate Hub) – reached a consensus on the urgent need to establish a collaborative process between public development banks and Indigenous leaders.
With COP28 swiftly approaching, it is paramount to prioritize social equity in the climate solutions foreseen and the financing required.
The outcome brief which was submitted to the summit organize for this session, which was submitted to the summit organizers, proposed a number of key reforms that can transform how Indigenous Peoples and financing institutions cooperate to support sustainability solutions across the planet, as well as to advance ecological justice. They include recognizing – and financing – the agency of Indigenous Peoples and the relevance of their development strategies.
The interlocutors also discussed the need to change how we invest and how we measure investment, including the link financing to policy and legal milestones that will underpin the roles, rights and needs of indigenous peoples as leading custodians of biodiversity and curators of climate solutions. Furthermore, the governance of funds and projects needs a reform, including joint management schemes between public agencies and indigenous peoples’ organisations, as well as direct access to funding for indigenous organisations.
As the facilitator stated, the success of sustainability solutions requires the close cooperation between those that finance them and those that implement them – hence the need to further this sort of dialogues and establish joint endeavours. The interlocutors identified the Finance in Common summit in September as an opportunity to raise this dialogue stream between public development banks and indigenous peoples.
Find out more about our work on Equity and Integrity in Forest Solutions here.