Charting a Path to Scale
The Path to Scale Initiative, catalyzed by RRI in 2021 and co-chaired with the Tenure Facility, is an informal network of donors, financial intermediaries, and rightsholders’ groups committed to scaling up funding, coordination, and innovation for the land and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples—particularly the women and youth within these groups—to achieve 2030 global climate and biodiversity targets. Participants work together toward the achievement of the following two targets:
- Support the recognition of tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples to at least 400 million additional hectares of tropical forest by 2030; and
- Mobilize $10 billion in new funding dedicated to advancing Target 1 by 2030 in tropical forest countries.
Achieving these targets would put at least one-half of all tropical forests under the control of local peoples, and dramatically increase their potential for long-term conservation and climate mitigation action.
Here are a couple highlights of what Path to Scale achieved in 2023.
- The Path to Scale solidified its position as the leading platform for coordinating donor and intermediary action to scale up funding for Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ tenure. Representatives from over 50 organizations (including Ford Foundation, World Bank, Conservation International, BMZ, Maliasili, and rightsholder networks) participated regularly to share information, develop analyses, and strategize for major international events.
"We have a collective dream. We want to speak our own languages, dance our dances, wear our clothes, and feed ourselves from our land. If we lose our territories, we will lose all of this."
— Jhontoni Tarihoran (AMAN) Former national chair of the Indigenous Youth Front of the Archipelago in Indonesia (BPAN)
- The Path to Scale organized an event in September 2023 during UN Climate Week in New York City, which was hosted by the Ford Foundation. Over 100 in-person and virtual participants attended the meeting, including from rightsholder-led funding mechanisms, civil society, and leaders from prominent Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community rightsholder movements to assess progress, identify challenges and opportunities, and strategize together on how to translate "fit for purpose" direct funding policies and commitments into practice. The Forest Tenure Funders Group (FTFG) joined the afternoon session to provide updates on the historic Forest Tenure Pledge committed at CoP26 and to discuss opportunities to coordinate with the Path to Scale at CoP28 and beyond. Participants agreed to develop a roadmap toward organizing a high-level international event at CoP30 in Brazil in 2025 to ensure that community tenure remains front and center in climate negotiations and to mobilize other leaders and funding from governments, civil society, and the private sector.