The 2024 annual partner meeting for the Path to Scale network.

The Path to Scale (P2S) is an informal network of donors, financial mechanisms, and their intermediaries facilitated by Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) to advance the land and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples (IPs), local communities (LCs) and Afro-descendant Peoples (ADPs) — particularly women — to help achieve 2030 global climate and biodiversity targets. At its 2024 annual meeting, P2S members will collectively develop a roadmap and principles to achieve a new, more ambitious funding pledge at next year’s CoP30 in Brazil to secure IP, LC, and ADPs’ guardianship of global land and ecosystems. It will also launch a new report on localization of aid, which provides specific recommendations for USAID to deliver more direct, fit for purpose support to IPs, LCs, and ADPs in line with its localization agenda. 

CONTEXT 

In 2025, the $1.7 billionIPLC Forest Tenure Pledge announced at COP26 by the Forest Tenure Funders Group (FTFG) reaches its end date, yet greater finance and more direct funding modalities are needed now more than ever. Mobilizing more direct support for IPs, LCs, and ADPs is critical to achieving the UN’s 2030 climate and biodiversity targets.  

P2S estimates that a minimum of US $10 billion is required by 2030 to support recognition of an additional 400 million hectares of tropical forests for communities. 

According to its 2024 analysis of State of Funding for Tenure Rights and Forest Guardianship, RRI found that while overall funding for IP, LC, and ADP tenure and forest guardianship has increased by 36 percent since 2020, little of this funding reaches local organizations directly. The FTFG and others in the P2S have already begun to think more deliberately about “what’s next” after the COP26 pledge expires, and increased coordination is required to put forth a consistent, collaborative, and ambitious new pledge.  

P2S participants will use Climate Week as a moment to capture and synthesize the successes, challenges, and opportunities for rightsholder movements, donors, government, and civil society to inform and promote a new, more ambitious pledge at CoP30 in Brazil. In specific, they will seek to: 

Contribute to Pledge 2.0 Principles – Hold multi-stakeholder discussions to inform and advance a new IPLC Tenure Pledge at COP30 in Brazil, providing input on results and lessons learned from the previous pledge, recommended targets for new funding, and specific modalities for its implementation. 

Launch a new report with practical recommendations for USAID to deliver more direct, fit for purpose support to IPs, LCs, and ADPs in line with its localization agenda, and influence the localization agendas of other bilateral donors. 

For more information on this event, please contact Tim Derr [tderr@rightsandresources.org]