Indigenous Peoples' Climate Change Portal

23rd United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 23)

Wednesday 8 Nov. 2017, 15:00-16:30, Meeting Room 7 (Bonn Zone)

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) aims to achieving a paradigm shift towards a low carbon and climate-resilient development pathway in the global response to climate change. Ambitioning to become the most important multilateral instrument in climate finance, the Fund pays particular attention to the needs of communities and nations that are highly vulnerable to climate change, in particular Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and African States, where transformational projects and programmes are realized with GCF support. Despite Africa being considered as a focus region for the Fund, the current engagement by civil society organizations in the Fund's proceedings across the continent is very limited and faces significant challenges. The success of GCF activities and projects could however only be achievedif a wide societal consensus and proactive, critical but constructive role of multi-stakeholder actors and institutions at the local,regional and national levels, is enabled.

With a decision adopted at BM15, the Board of the Green Climate Fund mandated the Secretariat to develop and consider a Fund-wide Indigenous Peoples Policy at its 17th meeting that was held in Songdo in July 2017, a decision that was very welcome by us, indigenous peoples, and civil society organizations worldwide.[1]

The Secretariat since then launched a process of elaboration of a draft policy[2] that took due notice of the various proposals and elaborations, comments and critiques voiced by indigenous peoples’ representatives at the GCF and also originating from experience in the field, as well as the basic demands reiterated by the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) in the course of its activities at UNFCCC COPs and preparatory meetings.

Chers frères et sœurs,

Le Fonds vert pour le climat (FVC), organisme établi par la Conférence des parties (COP) à la Convention-cadre des Nations Unies sur les changements climatiques (CCNUCC) pour acheminer les fonds destinés à l’adaptation aux changements climatiques et à l’atténuation de leurs effets, est en train de mettre la dernière main à sa politique relative aux peuples autochtones. Le Secrétariat du FVC vient de lancer un appel public à contributions pour étayer cette politique relative aux peuples autochtones.

Voici une occasion sans précédent pour les peuples autochtones de se mobiliser pour s’assurer que le Fonds dispose d’une politique de haut niveau fondée sur les normes et les obligations internationales liées aux droits des peuples autochtones, comme la Déclaration des Nations Unies sur les droits des peuples autochtones (UNDRIP) et le principe du consentement préalable, libre et éclairé ; tout en reconnaissant le rôle positif des savoirs et des moyens de subsistance traditionnels des peuples autochtones pour l’adaptation aux changements climatiques et l’atténuation de leurs effets, et en veillant à ce que nous participions pleinement et effectivement aux activités du FVC à tous les niveaux. Par conséquent, la politique relative aux peuples autochtones constituera un instrument déterminant pour orienter la mise en œuvre des accords de la CCNUCC, notamment l’Accord de Paris.