Date: September 22, 2024
Through informal conversations in 2023, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) leadership expressed interest in working with the Path to Scale to identify best practices for funding local rightsholder organizations in keeping with the Forest Tenure Pledge and its localization agenda. This report aims to influence the localization agenda and improve bilateral policies and practices to ensure that more direct, fit-for-purpose support reaches Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples and their supporting organizations to secure tenure rights and conserve key ecosystems and biodiversity.
This report:
- Provides a brief overview of USAID localization efforts.
- Discusses key challenges to their implementation, especially for rightsholder groups governing forest and rural landscapes.
- Reviews best practices for overcoming these challenges and advancing more accessible and culturally adapted funding practices and systems.
It concludes with priority, action-oriented recommendations for USAID to further the localization agenda, specifically for Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples to secure tenure rights and manage forests. It also identifies how USAID can use the findings to influence, inform, and inspire other bilateral donors to take similar actions to ensure that more resources directly reach rightsholders.
The Path to Scale is an informal initiative that aims to scale up global ambition to legally recognize the land and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples—particularly women—at least to a level necessary to achieve the 2030 global climate and biodiversity targets. Read more about the targets and actions proposed by the Path to Scale at www.pathtoscale.org.
https://doi.org/10.53892/QLLX7508