Briefing Paper: What can Indigenous Peoples, local communities and women expect from Global Climate and Forests Funds in terms of their rights?

We are happy to announce the launch of a new briefing paper by the Global Forest Coalition entitled: What can Indigenous Peoples, local communities and women expect from Global Climate and Forests Funds in terms of their rights? An introduction and comparison of Safeguards and Participation Mechanisms 

As a result of the regime on ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks’ (REDD+) adopted by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, several relatively new global funds or financial windows have been established to finance forest-related initiatives from a climate perspective. The purpose of the briefing paper is to make a comparative analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of these funds´ rules and safeguards, specifically with respect to the rights of Indigenous Peoples, women and local communities, including their participation rights. Although we explore and compare a number of global funds, we place more emphasis on the Green Climate Fund, since it has recently emerged as the main multilateral finance mechanism within the international climate arena, with separate windows for forest-related adaptation and mitigation initiatives.

We hope this comparative analysis of current and potential funds will provide representatives of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women and their support groups with information on the different safeguards and participation mechanisms in forest and climate change related funds.

We also hope it will enable both these groups and policy-makers to prioritise financial and political support to those global funds that have the most robust rights-related safeguards and participation procedures, especially given the often-voiced concern that REDD+ and other forest and climate related funding might actually violate the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. While safeguards and participation mechanisms will not necessarily be able to address all the problems inherent in the REDD+ regime, it is important to know which global funds provide a stronger framework for defending Indigenous and community rights in forest and climate change policy.

7 Nov, 2014
Posted in Defending Rights, Forests and Climate Change