The Rights and Resources Initiative is working to reverse the traditional power dynamics of grant funding to ensure Indigenous peoples get more say over how money intended for them is spent.
The global NGO’s Community Land Rights and Conservation Finance Initiative, or CLARIFI, raises grant funding from private foundations and bilateral donors, then regrants it to Indigenous-led nonprofits. It directed about $10 million in such funding last year.
RRI is setting up a new entity for CLARIFI in Canada to fundraise from Canadian institutions and also support First Nations, Métis and Inuit organizations’ work around climate, conservation and resources.
“We wanted to build systems that work for us, that are led by us, that are governed by us,” RRI’s Deborah Sanchez told ImpactAlpha.
Inclusive climate finance
RRI is a network of more than 200 organizations led by Indigenous people, Afro-descendant people and other local communities to advance their land and resource rights. It launched CLARIFI in 2022 with Campaign for Nature to address the fact that just 1% of global climate funding directly reaches communities.
Grantees have full control over how the money is spent. CLARIFI also gives network members authority to shape the fund’s priorities and decide where grant dollars go.
“The governance of the funding is collective,” said Sanchez, an Indigenous leader from the Moskitia region in eastern Honduras who leads CLARIFI for RII.
Communities submit project ideas through WhatsApp, with no grant writer or international NGO acting as an intermediary. Technical reviewers assess each proposal, and a steering committee made up of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, youth and local community leaders from three continents sets funding priorities and approves the grants.
Committee members are this year prioritizing projects focused on gender justice and local economies.
Resilient livelihoods
Many of the proposals for grants from CLARIFI are to cover the costs of project feasibility studies and development, which could ready some of the initiatives for other forms of capital.
“The whole development of the product, the development of the idea, is where there’s an enormous [funding] gap,” Sanchez said.
One CLARIFI grant funded the certifications and assessments needed for a cocoa cooperative in Peru to comply with the EU’s new zero-deforestation rules to maintain its business with European buyers. In Cameroon, CLARIFI’s funding enabled pastoralist women to process excess milk into soap and other products to reduce waste and generate extra income.
Other Indigenous-led and -focused organizations are similarly working to rebalance capital agency and ownership. The Mesoamerican Territorial Fund channels resources to Indigenous and community organizations defending territorial rights in Central America. Podáali Fund in Brazil regrants capital to communities in the Amazon. Both were created by member organizations of RRI’s coalition.
In Argentina’s Patagonia, Meliquina is developing an 18-megawatt solar project in which the Mapuche Millaqueo community holds an equity stake earned through its work on permitting, environmental planning and regulator engagement.
In the US, Indigenous-owned Navajo Power is co-developing utility-scale solar with tribal nations, cutting them in on the profits and governance of projects on their lands.
“If you start by building on the community’s principles and values, and engage communities from the beginning, then things actually work,” Sanchez said. “That’s what we have seen in practice.”
