The Women in Global South Alliance (WiGSA) is a cross-continental solidarity network of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community women from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The following principles outline the values that guide WiGSA in its internal relationships, decision-making, planning, and development of joint advocacy. These principles also support WiGSA’s positioning when crafting declarations and defining representation of the network in international and national spaces, and in dialogues with governments, allies, and donors.
This second edition of the State of Funding for Tenure Rights provides an updated analysis of international donor funding for Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples in tropical countries from 2011 to 2024. This edition includes an expanded scope to all terrestrial ecosystems, recognizing the importance of tracking funding beyond forests.
Through examples of Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ movements from the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala, the Enggano island in Indonesia, India's Bastar region, the Sinangoe in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and Colombia, the report presents best practices from communities defending their territories and cultures.
The Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework’s targets cannot be achieved without the rights, leadership, and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities. This new RRI report with Forest Peoples Programme and the ICCA Consortium analyzes the legal frameworks of 30 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and finds that although most have potential pathways for legally recognized community-led conservation, many have yet to formalize it as a distinct and additional means of achieving national conservation priorities.
This report represents two decades of working together across continents, cultures, and movements to build a more just and sustainable planet for Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples—particularly the women and youth within them.
As part of the international meeting "Afro-descendant Voices on the Road to COP30," held in Brasilia from April 1–4, 2025, representatives of the International Coalition of Territories and Afro-descendant Peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean (CITAFRO) launched the “Brasilia Declaration.” In the declaration, CITAFRO calls for effective participation in the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém.
This policy brief summarizes findings from a study undertaken by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and McGill University to systematically analyze the carbon rights held by Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
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.
Rights and Resources Initiative and Rainforest Foundation Norway are thrilled to announce the launch of the Path to Scale dashboard, a new open-source online tool that gives easy access to donor funding data for Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ tenure and forest guardianship.
Discover the power of collective action: learn about some of our pivotal successes of 2023 that energize us as we embark upon our 2024 workplans.
On 17 September 2023, over 70 rightsholder representatives and their allies joined together for a global dialogue on how climate finance can or should support their vision for the future in a world impacted by climate change. Held under Chatham House Rules, the dialogue sought to go beyond known gaps and challenges to address the critical needs of rightsholders and begin defining pathways that can support a more just, equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and climate-resilient future for all.
Growing recognition of the key roles of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities in resource governance has led to many international commitments, but taking actions to advance human rights-based approaches to climate and conversation remains a challenge. This policy brief explores the structural constraints to rights-based action and shares a framework to help implement these commitments.
This year's Climate Week theme, "We Can. We Will", focused on the urgent need for action, provided the backdrop for 25 leaders from Indigenous Peoples, NGOs, Civil Society and donors to discuss what they can do to ensure that the rights and priorities of communities are at the center of global area-based conservation efforts. This report brings together the most important aspects of this dialogue.
Eighteen young leaders from 10 Latin American countries call on governments,donors, and grassroots organizations to include youth in decision-making that impacts their territorial rights, and to strengthen their understanding of biodiversity management and conservation efforts.
More than 200 participants from 20 countries sign a Declaration inviting government actors, policymakers, international donors, the private sector, civil society, and allies to promote the implementation of the Forum's Roadmap by strengthening and promoting the engagement of Indigenous and local community women and girls in Central Africa in biodiversity conservation and climate resilience.
This report gives a snapshot of just some of our coalition’s pivotal successes that give us hope and vigor, particularly as we embark upon our new 5-year Strategic Program.
Afro-descendant Peoples’ Territories in Biodiversity Hotspots across Latin America and the Caribbean
This study seeks to raise awareness of the territorial presence of Afro-descendant Peoples in 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Although Afro-descendant Peoples in the region have been fighting for a place in international climate and conservation debates, not having defined boundaries for their ancestral lands has been an obstacle to adequately establishing how important their territories are for protecting biodiversity.
Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples must be recognized and supported as key actors and leaders in combatting climate change and conserving the Earth’s natural diversity to have any hope of reaching global climate and biodiversity goals. This paper provides an initial overview of emerging experience with “fit for purpose” approaches to channel resources at scale to collective rightsholders and their supporting organizations to conserve and manage forests and rural landscapes.
Over the course of 2022, one hundred leaders of grassroots networks in 22 countries—men, women, and youth among Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples—were interviewed about their hopes, dreams, and fears for the future.
Pastoralists are well adapted to harsh environments and have deep knowledge about their natural resources. They have also suffered from drought, famine, political interference, physical insecurity, armed aggression, increasing impoverishment, and marginalization. Despite these obstacles, pastoralists have long managed their lands for various purposes including livestock mobility, which depends on large commonly owned landscapes, knowledge of ecosystem productivity, and on the ability to negotiate access to resources.