About us
The Indigenous Peoples Finance Access Facility (IPFAF) is a US Department of State-funded initiative to support Indigenous Peoples’ groups around the world to directly access existing finance mechanisms, supporting their efforts to continue to conserve some of the most critical forests on earth.
The overall goal of this project is to enhance Indigenous Peoples capacity to access funding for the conservation, restoration, and improved management of their territories, specifically forests. This project works in the three regions of Asia, South America, and Africa, with a particular focus on Indigenous Peoples Organization (IPOs) from the following countries: Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, the Philippines, Tanzania, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Brazil. The project works directly with IPOs from the community, national, and regional levels to implement the activities outlined.
IPFAF 2022 – 2024
The IPFAF project began in 2022 focusing on a scoping survey sent to IPOs in each of the project focus regions. The scoping survey responses grounded the IPFAF project’s future activities, guiding the project team on the capacity building priorities for each region and for their direct access to finance. Following the scoping survey, the IPFAF project held regional consultations in each of the three project regions during the project’s first year: Latin America (held in Panama), Asia (held in Nepal), and Africa (held in Kenya). These consultations built on the feedback from the scoping survey, sharing an overview of regional responses with IPO leaders and collaboratively identifying regionally capacity building priorities for IPOs. Following year one of the project, IPFAF Regional Advisory Groups were created, comprised of self-elected IP leaders or members of IPOs in each of the three regions. The Regional Advisory Groups continue to guide the IPFAF project team, providing regionally relevant knowledge for the development of the IPFAF project activities.
During the second year of the IPFAF project, a two-part training series was co-developed with the project’s Regional Advisory Groups and implemented by the IPFAF team for about 15 IPOs in each project region. The topics of the two-part training series were guided by regional capacity building priorities that had been identified in the scoping survey and regional consultations. The first part of the training series focused on project design and management for Indigenous-led projects and was conducted virtually. The second part of the training series focused on Indigenous-led donor cultivation and donor engagement and was conducted in-person.
Additionally, during the second year of the IPFAF project, the project team worked with project participants to develop an online platform that houses capacity building resources related to Indigenous Peoples’ direct access to finance. These resources include IP-related funding opportunities, fellowships and other learning opportunities related to women, youth, climate science, English language learning, and more priority areas as identified in the first project year and through continued consultation with project participants in the second year. This online platform was in part a response to consultation discussions suggesting a shared place where IPOs could find relevant funding opportunities for their work. The platform is titled, “the Indigenous Peoples Online Resource Community” and is housed on Conservation International’s webpage.
Pictures of IPFAF participants on this page abide by “B1. Limited Use” by Conservation International to illustrate the project/program depicted in the photographs or videos.