What role do land institutions play in advancing community rights in Africa?

From September 12–14, 2023, the African Land Institutions Network for Community Rights (ALIN) will hold its 4th regional conference in Arusha, Tanzania. Land institutions from over a dozen countries will share lived experiences, opportunities, and challenges to further the community land rights agenda in Africa, with Indigenous and local community women, youth, and pastoralists taking center stage.

A new resource seeks to support companies and investors in understanding the shared value community monitoring could add to their operations and investments, and outlines principles to help them build productive partnerships with communities to secure their land tenure and improve compliance with environmental and social standards and commitments.

Press Release: Indigenous and local community women from Central Africa and the Congo Basin call for direct access to funding to help their efforts to achieve 30×30 goals

Women leaders from Africa, Asia, and North and South America gather in Brazzaville to strengthen the global solidarity movement for women-led initiatives to protect biodiversity and build climate resilience.

On December 6, RRI, the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership (CRP), and the ICCA Consortium—in partnership with the Canadian Research Chair in Human Rights, Health, and the Environment, Montreal International and the Christensen Fund—will co-host a pre-COP15 dialogue on Indigenous and community leadership in conservation.

This keynote address was shared in person on July 21, 2022 at the IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress in Kigali, Rwanda. Patrick calls on governments to leverage the cultural diversity of Africa to craft new conservation models that legally recognize and secure the tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities as a just and viable solution to the global biodiversity crisis.

President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo signs new law to protect Indigenous Pygmy Peoples

President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has signed a historic bill to protect and promote the rights of Indigenous Pygmy Peoples into law. This is the first-ever legislation in the country to recognize and safeguard the specific rights of Indigenous Peoples.

On Gender and Water Day at CoP27, women in the Global South make waves

November 14 marks Gender Day and Water Day at CoP27 in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt. We must take a moment to recognize how Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community women and girls are leaders in climate change mitigation and adaptation and integral to attaining the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

RRI is excited to announce the launch of its new online Tenure Tool. This platform, hosted on RRI’s website, will give rightsholders, researchers, activists, policymakers, and the public free and easy access to qualitative and quantitative data on the forest tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, local communities, and the women within those communities.

This July, an RRI delegation participated in the first-ever IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) in Rwanda and included Indigenous and community leaders from the Republic of Congo, the DRC, Liberia, Cameroon, and Kenya. APAC marked a crucial moment in shaping Africa’s conservation agenda and culminated in the Kigali Call to Action. This is our delegation’s response to this Call.

In Kenya, the Ogiek of Mt. Elgon are a community on the frontlines of forest conservation

Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and the Chepkitale Indigenous Peoples' Development Project (CIPDP) organized a site visit to Chepkitale to learn from the Ogiek of Mt. Elgon and shine light on the transformative role of community-led conservation in protecting Kenya's biodiversity-rich forests.

As the role played by Indigenous Peoples and local communities in safeguarding the planet gains long-due recognition by global climate and conservation initiatives, their representatives and allies have launched a new mechanism to finance locally-led efforts with full respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. 

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) and the Campaign for Nature (C4N) receive grant from Bezos Earth Fund to jointly scale up the recognition of tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples in the Tropical Andes and Congo Basin.