Funding Indigenous and Community-Led Climate Solutions
Across the world, communities, Indigenous Peoples, grassroots organizations, and local leaders are already delivering climate solutions—from nature-based approaches and adaptation initiatives to locally driven energy transitions. Yet while these efforts are often among the most effective and enduring responses to climate change, they continue to receive only a small share of climate finance and are frequently excluded from decisions about how funding is designed and distributed.
This discussion will explore what it takes to move from community engagement to community leadership. Participants will examine how climate finance, philanthropy, carbon markets, and blended finance can better support locally led solutions while respecting Indigenous self-determination and community priorities. The conversation will also consider the challenges of connecting grassroots initiatives with investors and institutions that often operate through very different incentives, timelines, and definitions of risk.
Rather than focusing on new ideas alone, the session will spotlight climate solutions that are already delivering results and ask what is preventing them from scaling. What can funders, governments, businesses, and NGOs learn from approaches that have demonstrated impact on the ground? How can financial systems become more flexible, trust-based, and responsive to local realities? And how can communities move from being treated as beneficiaries to becoming genuine partners in climate action?
As pressure grows to turn climate ambition into implementation, there is increasing recognition that many of the most promising solutions already exist. The challenge is ensuring that power, resources, and decision-making reach the people who are making them work.
Discussion Group Leaders
Bastiaan Witvliet is Founder/CEO of Nature Restoration Company, advancing high-integrity forest restoration and climate finance solutions in East Africa.
Juliana Strobel is Climate Action Director at Fundación Avina, advancing climate governance and locally led resilience initiatives across Latin America.
Discussion Questions
What prevents climate finance from reaching community-led, Indigenous-led, and grassroots climate solutions at scale?
How can funders, investors, and philanthropic organizations shift from project-based funding toward more flexible, trust-based, and locally accountable approaches?
What can governments, businesses, and development organizations learn from community-led climate initiatives that have already demonstrated measurable impact?
How can local communities, Indigenous Peoples, and grassroots organizations be positioned as decision-makers and partners rather than beneficiaries within climate finance and implementation systems?