- The $1.7 billion pledge to support Indigenous peoples and local communities’ land rights made at the 2021 U.N. climate conference has been met one year ahead of schedule.
- Sources told Mongabay that the pledge led to an increase in funding for Indigenous peoples and local communities’ tenure and guardianship, but direct funding to these groups still remained low.
- The pledge succeeded in meeting its goals thanks to the continuous coordination between donors, said stakeholders, and funding patterns shifted over the years to increase direct funding to Indigenous peoples and local communities, as well as to groups in Asia.
- Stakeholders said future pledges must involve early and consistent dialogue with communities, support for the rights of forest defenders, simplified processes and reduced administrative barriers for more direct funding, as well as greater inclusion of women and youth.
Four years after several governments and private funders pledged $1.7 billion at the COP26 U.N. climate summit to support the land tenure rights of Indigenous and local communities, funders have announced that the pledge has surpassed its original financial target one year ahead of schedule.
In light of this news, Mongabay spoke with several stakeholders to discuss what was accomplished, what worked and what didn’t, and the lessons learned.
The COP26 Forest Tenure Pledge was launched in 2021 to help boost Indigenous and local community land tenure rights, following findings that less than 1% of climate finance was directed to projects supporting these groups’ tenure and forest management between 2011 and 2020. Rebeca Sandoval, a program officer at the Ford Foundation, one of several private funders that contributed to the pledge, told Mongabay over email that the pledge has accomplished its aims.
“It was meant to encourage members and the broader donor community to continuously prioritize the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, and local communities in their funding agendas and strategies,” she said. “And that is what happened.”
While the share of direct support for Indigenous and local community organizations remains low, over the last four years, there has been a positive trend in overall direct funding to these groups and an increase in the number of local community organizations receiving direct funding, from 22 in 2021 to 112 in 2024, according to the latest report by the FTFG.
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South Kalimantan’s Walhi measures the trees on Mount Hauk, the sacred territory of the Dayak Pitap. Image by Riyad Dafhi Rizki/Mongabay Indonesia.
According to previous reports by the Forest Tenure Funders Group (FTFG), only 2.9% of the $321 million provided by donors went directly to Indigenous and local community organizations in 2021, decreasing to 2.1% of the $493 million in 2022. By 2023, this number had slightly risen to 10.6% of the $521 million provided that year, and in 2024, 7.6% of the $527 million provided went directly to these groups.
“My impression is that the percentage is still very low,” Levi Sucre Romero, an Indigenous Bribri from Costa Rica, the general director of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests and a Global Alliance of Territorial Communities leader, told Mongabay via WhatsApp. “But for us, the important thing is that a path was opened — and that path needs to be broadened for future pledges.”
A report published in 2025 by Rainforest Foundation Norway and the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) found that funding for Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ tenure and guardianship has increased by 47% since the pledge began in 2021, with more than half of the increase directly linked to the pledge itself.
One reason why the COP26 land tenure pledge met its goal, while other climate and conservation financing pledges fail, fall short or break their promises, is because it was “rooted in collective, multistakeholder action,” said Bryson Ogden, the director of livelihoods for the RRI. Continuous coordination also played a role, he explained. Supportive donors from several different coalitions kept coming back to work together through the FTFG coordinating platform, said Ogden, and also used the Path to Scale network to coordinate with one another and work with allies to implement the pledge’s goals.
Molding to direct funding requests
While the pledge’s funding patterns shifted over the years and increased in certain regions, such as Asia, there are several reasons why direct funding to Indigenous and local community organizations remained low, according to sources Mongabay spoke to. Ogden explained that when the pledge was created, it was largely a donor initiative, and so the FTFG and donors carried out little consultation with the communities from the outset.
Over time, donors have engaged more with leaders and their allies, which has improved the situation, Ogden said. But as it wasn’t part of the process from the beginning, progress has been much slower.
Sucre said a large problem is that funding projects come with their own frameworks, which are placed on communities, despite the fact that they don’t respond to the real needs on the ground. “As a result, a lot of money ends up wasted or misused because communities are forced into indicators that don’t make sense for them, which reduces the impact,” he said. “That is why direct access is so important — but always with the approach of building proposals together with the people and the donors.”
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An Indigenous Tikuna man in the Amazon Rainforest in Colombia. Some researchers oppose the idea that human cultures would have been limited and determined by the environment, and that supports the notion that human cultures have modified the environment as desired. Image by Rhett Ayers Butler/Mongabay.
Another issue has been accessibility. “The ‘plumbing’ hasn’t been fixed: compliance rules are heavy, bureaucracy is thick, and the support that does exist isn’t always tailored to how many local groups are structured,” Ogden added. “A lot of these organizations aren’t traditional Western NGOs — they’re social, cultural, or political movements — and the funding architecture doesn’t make it easy for them to access resources.”
The systemic barriers highlighted by Ogden were echoed by Trisha Mani, a senior project manager at the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainable Leadership. Mani said funding mechanisms are often complex, costly and involve intermediaries, such as international NGOs, which slow down decision-making and impact funding priorities.
Analysts say the lack of trust between donors and Indigenous peoples and local communities is also an obstacle to direct funding.
Lessons learned
Sandoval told Mongabay via email that a key lesson learned was the need for consistent dialogue with all partners involved, particularly Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and local communities, from the outset and throughout.
“Going forward, the FTFG is committed to sustaining spaces for learning and exchange that honor partnerships, shared goals, and help understand shared challenges,” she said.
As Mani explained, “For a pledge to be successful, those most affected must have a seat at the table, there need to be clear, measurable targets and transparent reporting, and funding pathways need to be flexible and adaptable to local contexts.”
Mani also highlighted the need for greater attention to women and youth. Research has shown that women and youth are often excluded from decision-making processes, particularly when it comes to land governance and climate-related finance. A study published by the IIED in 2023 found that only 2.3% of climate finance prioritizes gender equality as a principal focus.
This is less than what was reported by the FTFG, which found that 14% of 2024 funding had gender equality as a principal objective, and 52% of funding listed it as a secondary focus. Over the years, according to the latest FTFG report, projects with a gender focus have been better prioritized and integrated into the work of FTFG members. Though the funders have also stated there have been relatively few initiatives designed with women’s leadership as a central focus, and less than 1% of 2024 funding went to projects designed with youth as the primary target.
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Betty Rubio, an Indigenous forest monitor, encourages women to get involved in monitoring their territories and forests. Image courtesy of Rainforest Foundation US.
Another issue raised by Sucre was that monitoring and traceability have remained weak since 2021. Some donors, for instance, do not consistently report funding information publicly. “Up to now, we only hear that a certain amount was executed, but we don’t know with whom, through whom, or whether it truly reached the territories,” he said.
The report also found that future funding should be committed to rights recognition in order to protect forest defenders who conserve the tenured lands and continue to face disproportionate risks of violence for their work.
“Tenure security is an important step — and one that provides important legal protections — but defenders will never be truly safe until we address the structural challenges and power imbalances that put them at risk,” the report stated.
A new pledge?
As conversations turn toward a possible second pledge, sources raised concerns about the future availability of climate and land tenure aid.
Jessica Webb, a strategy lead for forests and nature for people at the World Resources Institute, stated that the closure of USAID, which she noted has been a historic leader in supporting Indigenous and community tenure, has led to setbacks in the availability of direct funding for these groups. Now, governments that previously invested similar support, such as the U.K. and Germany, have also signaled potential aid cuts. Instead, these countries are shifting resources toward other priorities, such as defense spending.
“This makes it even more important that pledges like this lock in long-term, predictable, community-controlled funding streams,” Ogden said. “Without that, communities will continue to face unstable boom-and-bust cycles of aid, undermining tenure security and long-term forest stewardship.”
Sources told Mongabay that early and consistent dialogue with communities, direct funding, simplified processes and reduced administrative barriers, as well as greater inclusion of women and youth, should be built in from the very beginning of any future pledge.
“This involves co-designing the pledge with communities and a commitment to predictable, multiyear, and adaptable flows of direct funding,” Ogden said. “If done right, a new pledge can move from being a signaling device to becoming a genuine financing mechanism that strengthens rights and stewardship where it matters most: in the hands of communities.”
Banner image: Indigenous guide at Sani Isla in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Image by Rhett Ayers Butler.
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