Strategic Response Mechanism
The Strategic Response Mechanism (SRM) is a financial mechanism designed by RRI to enable timely, flexible responses to unforeseen opportunities and threats facing communities in our focus regions. It allows organizations in-country to effectively shift political landscapes in their constituencies, influence important legislation on land and resource rights, as well as empower and protect local communities against crises and criminalization.
- In Nepal, the SRM supported advocacy for the passage of the Shagya Tradition Preservation Act in the Gorkha District’s Tsum Nubri Rural Municipality, which formally recognizes and preserves the Indigenous Tsumba community’s Shagya tradition of nonviolence. The law’s passage followed sustained community advocacy supported by the Center for Indigenous Peoples’ Research and Development (CIPRED). Following the bill’s passage, Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal attended the community’s centennial festival to commemorate the Shagya principle and expressed his commitment to support Shagya culture.
- In a big win for the Maya Q’eqchi’ People of Guatemala, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of the community’s lawsuit, recognizing that Guatemala’s issuance of mining permits had violated collective land rights. The Indian Law Resource Center, which spearheaded the community’s legal battle, was supported by the SRM. The court’s decision, announced on December 15, has given the government six months to award a land title to the community.
- In Cameroon, the SRM supported the establishment of an Indigenous and Community Conserved Area (ICCA) consisting of 150 hectares of sacred forests and 110 hectares of community lands in five districts, benefiting more than 60,000 people. The Fondation Internationale pour le Développement, l’Education, l’Entreprenariat et la Protection de l’Environnement (FIDEPE) developed five environmental and social management plans for biodiversity conservation activities, carried out participatory mapping, and led capacity-building trainings for communities on key international biodiversity legislation. Now, FIDEPE is working with Rainforest Alliance to secure ICCAs in three additional districts in the west of the country, all of which will help to achieve Target 3 of the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework.