The Green Climate Fund in Peru: Indigenous organisations´ recommendations for improving safeguards

This report provides an update on the Green Climate Fund’s investments in Peru and makes a series of recommendations aimed at overcoming its limitations about Indigenous Peoples safeguards. It highlights the need for structural change to ensure more effective and equitable participation of Indigenous Peoples in decision-making regarding climate action and access to climate funds, particularly those of the Green Climate Fund.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is the world’s largest dedicated climate action fund. Its goal is to promote a “paradigm shift towards low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways in developing countries”. With this in mind, it is supporting a range of adaptation and mitigation projects and programmes in more than 100 countries involving investments of approximately USD 9 billion. The GCF is a fund established within the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is an operating entity of this latter’s financial mechanism and is a response to the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping the average global temperature increase well below 2 degrees Celsius and pursuing efforts to limit that temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The GCF has an explicit interest in making sure Indigenous Peoples are considered in any funding decisions. In February 2018, the GCF adopted an Indigenous Peoples Policy that aims to ensure that GCF projects recognise Indigenous Peoples’ particular role in society with regard to decisions on climate action. This policy acknowledges that Indigenous Peoples’ economic, social, and legal status often limits their ability to defend their rights and interests in lands, territories and natural and cultural resources and may restrict their ability to participate in and benefit from development and climate action initiatives. It also notes that, in many cases, Indigenous Peoples do not enjoy equitable access to project benefits and nor are projects designed or delivered in a culturally appropriate way. They are also not always adequately consulted with regard to the design or implementation of activities that affect their lives and communities. This policy forms one of the safeguards that seek to ensure that GCF funding does not harm local communities or ecosystems. Quite the contrary, the policy seeks to strengthen the contributions of Indigenous Peoples. The GCF has also explicitly stated that its funding seeks to enhance Indigenous Peoples’ capacity to cope with climate change.