Indigenous Peoples’ migration is a multidimensional phenomenon shaped by historical, socio-economic, cultural, environmental, and political factors. Indigenous Peoples migrate along diverse pathways, including rural–urban, seasonal, cyclical, transborder, forced, stepwise, and return migration, but remain systematically invisible in policy, data, and governance frameworks. This invisibility reflects structural biases in dominant migration theories, which prioritize economic rationality, sedentary territoriality, and individual decision-making over collective rights, ancestral mobility, and cultural continuity.

Existing international frameworks like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), ILO Convention 169 (1989), Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (2018), Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples guidance, and Sustainable Development Goals provide normative recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ rights and collective territoriality. However, these instruments are weakly operationalized, leaving migrant Indigenous Peoples exposed to discrimination, labor exploitation, territorial disruption, and exclusion from decision-making processes. Corporate practices and development-induced displacement further exacerbate vulnerabilities, particularly for women, children, and youth.

See Policy Brief on IPMG website

Nature Based Solutions (NBS) is increasingly becoming a common feature in reference to a bundle of possible responses to the need for mitigation of and adaptation to climate change and enhancement of biodiversity conservation. NBS is broadly associated with “actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.”

The growing interest on NBS arises out of an apparent ‘Climate Crisis’ in which around one million species already face extinction, many within decades, and the realization that only radical changes in the immediate future could help mitigate the crisis.¹ In addition, by 2030, the world is projected to face a 40% global water deficit under the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario and it is expected that climate change will exacerbate these conditions.²

The discourse on NBS raises broader fundamental questions around how humanity perceives nature and how it chooses to relate to it. Nature is generally accepted to be the cradle of life and that all life forms exhibit interdependence in complex ways. Beyond this utilitarian view of nature, nature is also associated with identity, spirituality, and sacredness particularly among indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples’ knowledge and community-based monitoring systems, traditional occupations, indigenous food systems, and basic survival are all grounded in nature-based solutions, regulated through customary systems of governance. Indigenous peoples’ NBS strategies are founded on key principles such as reciprocity (“returning the gift”) and mutuality; cultural identity and customary law; context-based relationality and local economies; community-based governance; and social justice inclusivity.

These sustainable uses and responses to climate change strategies by indigenous peoples constitute a missed opportunity in efforts to sustainable utilization and nature-based solutions to climate change. The recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights, the security of their lands and territories, the promotion of indigenous knowledge including CBMIS and Customary governance, their full and effective participation, their direct access to resources and capacity building are all critical in ensuring indigenous peoples’ contribution to NBS initiatives.

The Governing Instrument of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), in its chapter X, establishes that "the Board of Directors will agree on and adopt environmental and social safeguards of best practices, which will be applied to all programs and projects financed with the Fund's resources."

At its seventh meeting in May 2014, the Board adopted the Performance Standards for Environmental and Social Sustainability of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards as the interim Environmental and Social Safeguards of the GCF. The interim ESS was to be used by the GCF until the GCF-specific ESS was fully developed.

The initial guidance framework for the GCF accreditation process states that, in relation to the development of the GCF ESS, once the GCF has accumulated a history of experience and lessons learned, an in-depth review will take place.

The process is that the GCF must establish a balance without contradictions between the Indigenous Peoples Policy, the Gender Policy and the Environmental and Social Policy, specifically considering the safeguards (ESS) in order to ensure that the climate financing that this organization grants, does not harm Indigenous and local communities or ecosystems.

With the three aforementioned Policies, the GCF ensures standards that include, in a coordinated and comprehensive manner the following: equitable management of environmental and social risks; the importance of fully and effectively involving Indigenous peoples in the design, development and implementation of strategies and activities; and incorporation of the the gender perspective from the beginning of its operations as an essential element of decision-making for the deployment of its resources.

An important aspect to mention—and that should not be overlooked—is that, although it is true that the GCF is responsible for ensuring that these policies are reflected in the concept notes and proposals for financing and action plans, the AE is directly responsible for implementing them in the country level.

In this sense, Indigenous Peoples Organizations (IPOs) are interested and wish to accompany the development of the discussions on the in-depth review of the ESS, in order to ensure the rights of Indigenous Peoples. In this document, we intend to develop annotations on the ESS as a contribution to the in-depth review process.

Las finanzas climáticas y los compromisos alrededor de estas son temas importantes al hablar de la actual crisis ambiental. Las finanzas para las acciones clmáticas suelen generar una serie de discusiones y preguntas que en ocasiones pueden paracer interminables, complicadas y poco transparentes. En la arquitectura financiera global, existen mecanismos especializados de financiamiento. Uno de estos mecanismos financieros es el Fondo Verde para el clima (FVC).

El Fondo Verde para el Clima, tuvo su primera reunión de la Junta Directiva (B.01) en Agosto del 2012 y aprobo su primer proyecto tres años despues en Noviembre del 2015, durante la 11ava reunión de la Junta Directiva (B.11). Esta primera propuesta de financiamiento tiene una significante importancia para los Pueblos Indígenas, ya que se establecia acción en el área del Datem en Perú, en territorios de Pueblos Indígenas y sobre todo levanto una serie de cuestionamientos que tienen relación con el respeto y reconocimiento de los derechos colectivos de los Pueblos Indígenas y sobre todo a la importancia de realizar procesos que integren el consentimiento, libre, previo e informado (CLPI), en toda acción climática que se realice en tierras y territorios indígenas, así como la importancia de el seguimiento y el monitoreo de las acciones del Fondo.

Este primer proyecto del FVC, establecio la pauta para reconocer la importancia de monitorear las finanzas del clima, desde la posición de los Pueblos Indígenas, ya que existe una falta de datos que puedan decirnos cuantos proyectos de acción climática se implementan en tierras y territorios indígenas, pero sobre todo como van a impactar a los Pueblos Indígenas, y como estos son integrados en las acciones.

Climate finance and the commitments around it are important topics when discussing the current environmental crisis. Climate finance often generates a series of discussions and questions that can sometimes seem endless, complicated, and non-transparent. In the global financial architecture, there are specialized financing mechanisms. One such financial mechanism is the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

The Green Climate Fund held its first Board meeting (B.01) in August 2012 and approved its first funding proposal three years later in November 2015, during the 11th Board meeting (B.11). This first funding proposal has a significant importance for Indigenous Peoples, as it established action in the Datem area of Peru, in Indigenous Peoples' territories and above all raised a series of questions related to the respect and recognition of the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples and especially the importance of conducting processes that integrate free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in all climate actions to be carried out on indigenous lands and territories, as well as the importance of follow-up and monitoring of the Fund's actions.

This first GCF project set the tone for recognizing the importance of monitoring climate finance from the position of Indigenous Peoples as there is a lack of data that can tell us how many climate action projects are implemented on Indigenous lands and territories –more importantly, how these climate actions will impact Indigenous Peoples and how data obtained from climate finance monitoring are integrated into the said actions.

In February 2018, the GCF approved the Indigenous Peoples Policy during its 19th Board Meeting. This policy was the response to the constant concerns of Indigenous Peoples to avoid any negative impacts on activities that are financed by the Fund and that supports the rights of Indigenous Peoples and defines compensation for any unavoidable harm that Indigenous Peoples might suffer. Another objective of the policy was to ensure that Peoples are fully and effectively involved in consultations at all levels when developing Indigenous Peoples' policies, projects and programs, allowing them to benefit from GCF activities and projects in a "culturally appropriate manner".

There are many important elements to know if these actions are having a "do-good" rather than a "do-no-harm" effect, and that is why monitoring the actions of the Green Climate Fund, but especially the actions taking place on our lands and territories as Indigenous Peoples, is so important. 

The population of indigenous peoples in the Philippines has not been reliably established until now. With the inclusion of an ethnicity variable in the 15th Census on Population and Housing in September 2020, we hope to finally see a close estimate of the number of indigenous peoples in the country and where they are with the inclusion of an ethnicity variable. Indigenous peoples have not been adequately and properly reflected in any census because of the lack of the proper ethnicity variable in the census tool, the questionable conduct of the census, and the lack of study on how best to make the census, or any national survey for that matter. In other words, indigenous peoples have been left behind.

Under the mantra of “Nothing about us, without us”, indigenous peoples the whole world over, together with partners, came out with the Indigenous Navigator Initiative to develop a tool to monitor the gaps in the enjoyment of indigenous peoples of both their individual and collective rights and make duty-bearers accountable, and also to help them devise implementation strategies for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The UNDRIP does not have a monitoring mechanism and thus violations of indigenous peoples rights are often hidden under other categories and are not addressed properly, and often excluded from development efforts.