Letter on the integration of indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge in adaptation and proposal for a pilot program on direct access to finance for indigenous peoples
November 6, 2019
The Board Members
Green Climate Fund
G-tower, Songdo-daero
Incheon, Republic of Korea
Dear Board members,
The upcoming November 2019 Board meeting will be discussing matters of great concern and of importance for indigenous peoples (IPs). BM 24 also offers an opportunity to progress in the approach and activities of the GCF, to align them to international best practices and commitments, with a view to contribute to the transformational and innovative impacts the Fund intends to pursue.
As a matter of fact, you will be discussing various forestry and REDD+ projects, that are relevant for indigenous peoples, in a way that these should ensure IP rights are not violated, are upheld and respected, and benefits are provided to them.
You will also be discussing replenishment, the Strategic Plan and programmatic approach, that offer an opportunity to properly and formally acknowledge – in their operative implications - the contribution of indigenous peoples to the Fund’s goals and purposes, the consideration of indigenous peoples’ knowledge, and the need to ensure that indigenous peoples can have direct access to finance, in line with what other Climate funds successfully do.
An important significant step in that direction would be – for instance - to contemplate the development of a pilot program on direct access to finance for indigenous peoples, by inserting reference to it in the Strategic Plan for the coming years.
With this letter, we wish to share with you the rationale for such demands, providing an analysis of how indigenous peoples’ knowledge can contribute to the Fund’s goals and the conditions that are required to ensure that. First and foremost, by establishing a direct access to finance for indigenous peoples that can be parallel or alternative to currently envisaged modalities, and that could be better tailored to indigenous peoples’ potential contributions or needs.