Enhancing Climate Finance Access for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Insights From Payments for Ecosystem Services

The report reviews 129 PES programs across 36 countries to assess how Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs) benefit from and are excluded from these mechanisms. While PES can help preserve ecosystems and strengthen land rights, many IPs and LCs face systemic barriers, including lack of formal land tenure and top-down governance. The report argues that direct payments often fail to compensate efforts fairly, with some payments as low as US$0.33 per household annually. It proposes a multi-tiered strategy involving rights recognition, co-creation in program design, and long-term legal reforms to improve financial flows and leadership for IPs and LCs.

• Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs) provide significant ecosystem value, yet receive minimal direct development assistance for land tenure and forest management, with less than 1% of such assistance between 2011-2020 directed toward these areas.
• PES programs offer benefits such as ecosystem preservation, strengthened land rights, and improved livelihood resilience, but financial compensation is often inadequate, sometimes covering less than 25% of opportunity costs or providing as little as US$0.33 per household per year.
• IPs and LCs encounter structural, institutional, and programmatic barriers to PES access, including a lack of formal land rights, weak local governance, exclusionary enrollment criteria like minimum land size, and top-down governance that limits their role in decision-making.
• Achieving equitable outcomes requires a phased approach: short-term actions focusing on customary land tenure and co-creation; medium-term actions to empower local institutions and align benefits with community needs; and long-term systemic reforms to secure legal resource rights and expand ecosystem markets.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Enhancing Climate Finance Access for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Insights From Payments for Ecosystem Services. https://www.wri.org/research/climate-finance-access-indigenous-peoples-local-communities-payments-ecosystem-services

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Enhancing Climate Finance Access for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Insights From Payments for Ecosystem Services. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/climate-finance-access-indigenous-peoples-local-communities-payments-ecosystem-services.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Enhancing Climate Finance Access for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Insights From Payments for Ecosystem Services |url=https://www.wri.org/research/climate-finance-access-indigenous-peoples-local-communities-payments-ecosystem-services |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendenhancing, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Enhancing Climate Finance Access for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Insights From Payments for Ecosystem Services}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/climate-finance-access-indigenous-peoples-local-communities-payments-ecosystem-services}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }