State of Funding for Tenure Rights
State of Funding for Tenure Rights

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.

Report: Localizing Bilateral Finance for Community Rights
Report: Localizing Bilateral Finance for Community Rights

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 document includes the results of the study Contributions of Indigenous Women's Entrepreneurship in Colombia to their Economy, Territorial Governance and Climate Resilience during COVID-19, which brings together four case studies of entrepreneurship led by Indigenous women from different regions of Colombia.

State of Funding for Tenure Rights and Forest Guardianship
State of Funding for Tenure Rights and Forest Guardianship

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.

Annual Report 2023
Annual Report 2023

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.

Young Indigenous, Afro-descendant and Local Latin American Communities United for the Defense of Ancestral Territories
Young Indigenous, Afro-descendant and Local Latin American Communities United for the Defense of Ancestral Territories

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.

Who Owns the World’s Land?
Who Owns the World’s Land?

This report presents the most comprehensive and up-to-date picture of global progress towards the legal recognition of community-based land tenure, and offers a baseline against which the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework 2030 Targets can be monitored.

Annual Report 2022
Annual Report 2022

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.

Securing Land Tenure for Prosperity of the Planet and its Peoples
Securing Land Tenure for Prosperity of the Planet and its Peoples

The engagement of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities must be driven by their self-determination and potential as main actors in a multifunctional transformation process. This process must be grafted on climate change mitigation and adaptation, nature and biodiversity conservation, landscape restoration, radical food systems change, the empowerment of women and youth, as well as land and resources conflict management.

Building Bridges
Building Bridges

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.

Community Land Rights in Liberia: A Summary of 2020 Analyses
Community Land Rights in Liberia: A Summary of 2020 Analyses

This summary highlights findings of three RRI studies conducted in 2020 as they relate to Liberia, and explains what the findings of these three studies mean for Liberia and aims to equip local communities and civil society organizations (CSOs) with data to advance their advocacy work to influence future reforms, and help the government, donors, private sector actors, and conservationists make informed decisions.

Community Land Rights in the DRC: A Summary of 2020 Analyses
Community Land Rights in the DRC: A Summary of 2020 Analyses

This summary highlights findings of three RRI studies conducted in 2020 as they relate to the DRC. This document explains what these three studies mean for the DRC and aims to equip local communities and civil society organizations (CSOs) with data to advance their advocacy work to influence future reforms, and help the government, donors, private sector actors, and conservationists make informed decisions.

Opportunity Assessment to Strengthen Collective Land Tenure Rights in FCPF Countries
Opportunity Assessment to Strengthen Collective Land Tenure Rights in FCPF Countries

After more than a decade of engaging with Indigenous Peoples and local communities through REDD+ readiness and implementation efforts, participant countries of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) have gained insights into what is needed to strengthen communal and collective land forest tenure. This comprehensive report provides an assessment of countries affiliated with the FCPF's Carbon Fund and lays out cross-cutting challenges as well as opportunities to advance Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' land rights.

Community Land Rights in Kenya: A Summary of 2020 Analyses
Community Land Rights in Kenya: A Summary of 2020 Analyses

This summary highlights Kenya-specific findings of three RRI studies conducted in 2020. This document will explain what the findings of these three studies mean for Kenya, and aims to equip local communities and civil society organizations (CSOs) with data to advance their advocacy work to influence future reforms and help the government, donors, private sector actors, and conservationists make informed decisions.

Best Practices from RRI Collaborators in Africa
Best Practices from RRI Collaborators in Africa

RRI’s Collaborators from the Africa region have implemented a wide range of projects with the central goal of securing Indigenous Peoples (IPs)’ and local communities (LC)s’ tenure as a baseline for other pro-community engagements. RRI is highlighting some of the best practices from these projects to strengthen our Coalition members’ advocacy and other work, now and in the future.

Scaling-Up the Recognition of Indigenous and Community Land Rights: Opportunities, Costs and Climate Implications
Scaling-Up the Recognition of Indigenous and Community Land Rights: Opportunities, Costs and Climate Implications

A growing body of evidence suggests that recognition of the collective tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendants is a powerful and cost-effective strategy for addressing the climate and biodiversity crises. In spite of this, international funding for rights recognition pales in comparison to donor mobilization around alternative solutions to these crises.

Paying the Price: A Study on Criminalization of Land and Environmental Rights Defenders in East Africa
Paying the Price: A Study on Criminalization of Land and Environmental Rights Defenders in East Africa

The objectives of this paper include: To gather data on cases of violence and/or criminalization of land and environmental rights defenders (LERDs) in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda; To collect information on existing strategies and resources to address the criminalization of LERDs in East Africa; To map organizations working on the issue at the local, national, and regional levels; and To understand the steps leading to violence against or criminalization of human rights defenders.

The Opportunity Framework 2020
The Opportunity Framework 2020

Identifying Opportunities to Invest in Securing Collective Tenure Rights in the Forest Areas of Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Locating the Breach
Locating the Breach

In India, conflicts over land can have deep and far-reaching implications for the well-being, development, and identities of communities. A land conflict can be defined as any instance in which two or more parties contest the use of, access to, or control over land and its associated resources. Land conflicts permeate rural and urban areas across all Indian states. Resolving land conflicts in India's developing economy is essential to reducing inequality and the inequities that an isolated focus on growth can exacerbate. Land Conflict Watch (LCW) has investigated the reasons for, and the impact of, land conflicts across the country over the last three years.

Cornered by Protected Areas
Cornered by Protected Areas

Despite widespread poverty and insecure resource rights, evidence shows that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are still spending their limited resources on conservation efforts. They are also achieving outcomes that are at least equivalent to those of government-funded protected areas. This brief shows an urgent need to replace the fortress-conservation model with rights-based approaches to both improve conservation outcomes and end human-rights abuses committed in the name of conservation.

The Green Climate Fund: Accomplishing a Paradigm Shift?
The Green Climate Fund: Accomplishing a Paradigm Shift?

Drawing on international standards and Green Climate Fund policy documents, this report traces the adequacy and implementation effectiveness of the Fund’s current institutional frameworks across a representative sample of approved projects. Noting critical gaps in nearly every aspect of the Fund’s operational modalities and project approval processes, the report calls on the GCF to take progressive steps to make Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights a key part of its climate actions going forward.