Indigenous and Afro-descendant women’s organizations face worrying marginalization. Between 2016 and 2020, only 1.4% of the $28.5 billion allocated to support women and girls went to organizations working with Indigenous women, according to the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples (IFIP) and the International Indigenous Women’s Forum ( FIMI).
In the case of Afro-descendant women, the situation is even more critical. According to the Black Feminist Fund, during 2018-2019, Black girls, women, and trans people received less than 0.5% of global foundation funding.
The study indicates that current financing mechanisms do not adequately respond to the needs of communities. They lack flexibility, transparency and mutual accountability between donors and beneficiaries, and do not have a long-term vision to address the diverse needs of these organizations, making it difficult for them to access funds.
Pre-existing barriers, such as the limited availability of public information on English-only platforms, short deadlines for submitting applications, and donors’ lack of knowledge of the local context, further restrict organizations’ access to funding. led by women.
(This interview has been lightly edited for clarity)
Anna Lagos (AL): The recent study affirms that Afro-descendant, Indigenous and local community women receive less than 1% of international financial support to address climate change. How have you seen this lack of funding reflected in your community and in the struggles of indigenous women in the Amazon?
Ketty Marcelo (KM): For us, climate financing is not an act of welfare, but rather a historical reparation for centuries of destruction of our territories. Indigenous women are, at the same time, those who best preserve nature and those who suffer the greatest impacts of the climate crisis. The lack of resources prevents us from promoting more adaptation and mitigation actions to care for our ways of life based on our ancestral knowledge.
AL: What types of initiatives led by indigenous women do you think should receive more international funding to protect biodiversity and combat climate change?
KM: Those collective initiatives that recover and revalue our ancestral knowledge. That they take into account the preservation of the biodiversity that our territories house. That they respect our rights to autonomy and self-determination. That they are aimed at strengthening our food sovereignty and our energy sovereignty.
AL: The low percentage of financial support for indigenous women also reflects historical exclusion. What structural changes do you think are necessary in the way climate finance is allocated so that indigenous communities are protagonists in the solutions?
KM: An essential structural change is to recognize the plurinationality that exists in countries with a diversity of indigenous or native peoples. Overcome the idea of “interculturality” as a synonym for inclusion and give ourselves the spaces that correspond to us in decision-making spaces. We must break the colonial legacy of trying to “civilize” ourselves, because this represents a systematic policy of cultural extermination.
AL: How do current international financing models affect access to resources by indigenous communities? What specific obstacles do you face when trying to access these funds?
KM: The obstacle is the intermediation of institutions foreign to our people, which ignore our visions and ways of life. Furthermore, they mainly focus on the carbon market, that is, on the commodification of Mother Nature. They focus on the exclusive care of forests and do not have the holistic, integral, interdependent vision of Mother Nature.
AL: In relation to the energy transition, you mentioned the need to get rid of a dependence on fossil fuels. How do you see the role of indigenous women in leading that transition and what kind of sustainable energy projects could benefit communities in the Amazon?
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