 Good morning everyone and a warm welcome to you all for this really important session. My name's Andrew Norton, I'm the Director of IID, the International Institute for Environment and Development. We welcome you all and extend thanks to all the speakers and participants, particularly to Government of Sweden and to CEDA for our fantastic partnership with them which has led to this work. We're very happy to be co-hosting this event with CEDA as well, and we will each just say a few words before handing over to the moderator. Stockholm Plus 50 is a moment commemorating 50 years since the Seminole 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment that really gave birth to the multilateral system around environmental global action, and it's been fantastic to be here. That event plays a major role in the birth of IID. IID's founder, Barbara Ward, was a co-author of the technical report from the 1972 conference, Only One Earth, so it's a very meaningful moment for us as well, and we've been delighted to be involved with many events here. It's a good opportunity also to reflect on what has worked and what has not worked in those plenty in both buckets. This reflection comes at a pivotal time amid the current major global challenges, climate but also geopolitical and others that the world faces. We hope that the discussions taking place this week will sharpen political attention on the need to accelerate the implementation of the UN decade of action to deliver the SDGs, and also the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, still in gestation at this point sadly, but we hope to see that soon from coming. We also, of course, want to see all of this work, encourage and feed into equitable support to a green post-COVID recovery and also an equitable post-COVID recovery on global scale. Let me say a few words now to set the scene. Taking stock of the lessons and learnings of what needs now to happen in the coming months and years, CEDA commissioned IID to develop a new report on getting finance and decision making to the local level to deliver outcomes for people, nature and climate, an incredibly important area. Can we have the next slide please? Thank you. In the report, we argue that a mark of success of the discussions here will be a commitment from leaders to accelerate support and finance for locally led action for people, nature and climate, where decision making power, financial flows and resources are transferred to the local level with appropriate democratic structures and accountability and careful design to give urgency to local actors. Many years of research by IID, our partners and countless others, has repeatedly highlighted that locally led action is critical for addressing the triple crises of nature, climate and poverty, and yet very little funding still reaches local actors, whether local government communities or the local private sector. Last year, IID's research found that only 46% of finance committed from international sources for climate adaptation was intended to give agency to local actors. Within this amount, there was little evidence of local actors fully leading adaptation interventions. The same analysis also highlighted that many disadvantaged social groups face higher levels of structural exclusion, particularly women, youth, disabled people and indigenous people. These critically important groups in the context of climate vulnerability were sidelined from playing leading roles in influencing adaptation funding in the initiatives we reviewed. The report gives five recommendations, as seen on the slide that we've just put up, with actions that governments, multilateral development agencies, global funds and intermediaries can take to shift away from business as usual ways of working and move towards financing models that prioritise locally led adaptation for people nature and the climate. So the five recommendations stress the need to firstly increase the quantity, improve the quality and strengthen the transparency of finance flows. Secondly, critically important, to simplify access to climate finance. A lot of what goes wrong in terms of the inequitable functioning of the overall global system for adaptation finance is around this question of access. Thirdly, to prioritise equitable governance of finance. The fourth key recommendation is to strengthen investments in national and local institutions, including building national delivery mechanisms to get finance to the local level. Finally, to tackle the underlying drivers of vulnerability and recognise the value of coherent responses to the triple crises of climate nature, poverty also takes on board inequality, which has grown so dramatically in the world during the period of the pandemic. And for these principles to be mainstream through finance and all key decision makings. We have representatives here from a range of organisations in the room and we're delighted to welcome them to this discussion. So it will be good to hear how things are shifting and what can and needs to happen from this moment from Stockholm plus 50 onwards to bend the curve and to make these changes happen more rapidly. I will now invite co-hosts at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency to make some remarks and I'm delighted to hand over to Karin Yamtin, the director general at CEDA. Over to you Karin. Thank you Andrew and thank you IED for co-organising the seminar with us but most of all for all of the close collaboration and for the excellent report which as was stated by you forms the basis of today's discussion and today's session. The report, money where it matters for people, nature and climate, driving change through support for local level decision making over resources and finance is very much in line with our vision, the CEDA vision on every person's right and opportunity to live a decent life and to leave no one behind. Conclusions in the report will guide us, will guide and strengthen our work ahead. Not least and that is very important from a rights based approach. So thank you very much. Our experience tells us and this report demonstrates that active involvement and participation at the local level creates better and stronger more long term development results. We see an urgent need for increasing our actions at local level really reaching the ones most in need and by doing this we need to do it with participation and ownership from local actors such as local governments, local communities, local people. This is especially true in areas like working in the areas of nature and climate. We will look at the recommendations in the report directed to us as a development partner. We encourage other governments, multilateral development banks, global funds and others that have the means to support local level decision making to do the same. It is important that we link policy with recommendations at different levels and this is to strengthen the voices of women, men, girls and boys, everyone needing it. At CEDA we have many tools, we have many possibilities at hand with our support provided to both global, regional and local level. This is of course never to forget our support and collaboration with civil society organizations at all of these levels. Maybe needless to remind us but we are currently in the situation of three very interconnected crisis. Climate, biodiversity and pollution. All of this are putting economic and social well-being at risk and requires action at all levels also at local level. The poorest in the society are as always the hardest hit also by these crisis. I would like to be quite concrete in the end. I would like to mention some of our work related to climate change adaptation. During the last four years approximately 80% of our climate finance provided has been directed to adaptation and cross-cutting initiatives. One of the key aspects of CEDA's work within climate adaptation is to ensure that climate finance reaches local level where it is most needed. Locally led climate adaptation initiatives provide local institutions with more direct access to climate finance, which in turn enables them to implement adaptive actions in relation to existing and emerging local needs. We are currently providing support to various locally led adaptation initiatives and we are committed to facilitate inclusive locally led adaptation in vulnerable contexts. One very concrete example I would like to mention a bit extra. We are cooperating with the World Bank and the Government of Kenya in supporting an initiative called financing locally led climate action in Kenya. It's an initiative that incentivises county governments and strengthens their capacity to work in partnership with communities to assess their climate risks and identify and prioritise local resilience investments. I'm looking forward to this morning's session. I'm looking forward to learn and to get new insights. It will help us all to move in the direction of locally led action for people, nature and climate. I'm looking forward, as I said, to learn more from exploring examples and from all of you here today. Thank you again very much for the report and for attending this morning's session. Thank you very much indeed, Karen. I will now hand over to our moderator for the remainder of the event, the former chair of the least developed countries negotiating group in the climate negotiations and now a technical lead for the global green growth initiative and also for the LDC Group's important life AR initiative. That's the LDC initiative for effective adaptation and resilience, which picks up many of the themes that we're talking about today and really important. So that is Gebra Gemba. Delighted to have you here to moderate the session, Gebra. Please go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. Good morning, everyone. First, I would like to thank both SIDA and IID through Karen and Andrew for highlighting this importance issue at Stockholm Plus 50. First, I would like to thank you for inviting me to moderate the session. I can see in the room and virtually representatives from government, indigenous peoples and local communities and multilateral development banks, global funds, NGOs and more. I'm looking forward to a great discussion, so thank you for joining us. The issue of shifting finance and decision making to the local level is critical for delivering sustainable development. It needs to be central to the leaders discussion this week and I know many here today have been championing for this. At the new report from IID shows, despite increasing place for local finance in recent years, national and global actors still control much of the finance and decision making process. This falls to support local actors to be active agents of change and to create space and recognition for their extensive, local, intergenerational, indigenous, traditional and cultural knowledge. To tackle this challenge, the least developed countries groups have stepped forward. We launched our long-term 2050 vision in the UN climate summit in New York in 2019. This vision is for LDCs to be on climate resilient development pathways by 2030 and to achieve a net zero vision by 2050. Our vision is not empty statement. LDC-led initiatives are already delivering on this vision. We are aiming to reach 70% of the climate finance reach to the local community by 2030. LDC countries, irrespective of really looking at the victims narrative, we are now leading the process by doing, recognizing the critical role of local lead adaptation, local lead action. I call upon everyone here today, through your organizations and your networks, to call for stronger support and finance for local priorities. Stockholm Plus 50 is a major opportunity to strengthen the political leadership for local lead action. We cannot make the progress need to tackle climate change, reverse the laws of nature and arrest deepening inequalities without local lead action. The five practical recommendations in IID's new report, in my view, helped to chart the pathway forward and will form the base for our discussion today. Having just heard from IID and SIDA, we will now hear short reflections from indigenous peoples and local community representatives to help frame our discussion. We'll then shift to the unopened, moderated boardroom discussion. We'll have a list, we have in our list, fantastic speakers and encourage all participants to get involved. So I will start my timekeeping. We have a number of interventions. So I'll give four minutes for the first four interventions from the indigenous peoples and local community representatives. I will start with Mini Dagwan Kanakai-Igorant, the Philippines and the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity. You have four minutes. Thank you so much and thank you IID and SIDA for gathering us together to discuss this very urgent issue that indigenous peoples have always been talking about. There have been a lot of talk about the value including indigenous peoples in this climate action, how their knowledge has supported biodiversity. But we haven't talked about what is the support that has gone through or that has gone to indigenous peoples and local communities for them to be able to continue these actions that they have been doing for generations. In fact, what has happened is when indigenous peoples defend their territories from extractive industries, they are criminalized. So instead of supporting them, they are being attacked for the defense of these, the lands and the territories and the climate that we all depend on. So there is really this imbalance on the one hand recognizing the valuable support that indigenous peoples have been doing in terms of stewarding nature. But there has never been that support that goes into how do we continue to steward these resources if we are being attacked when we do what we have always been doing. So it is indeed very heartening to hear about all these pledges, about increased financing going to indigenous peoples and their actions. But I also worry that when we start talking about big numbers without actually looking at what are these numbers, where does it go and how does it go to indigenous peoples, we are probably also doing a great disservice to these people who are doing the work on the ground. So I fully agree with those five recommendations from the IED study. In fact, I would say that when we talk about increase the quantity, but we also have to make sure that these are real increase and real money and not just pledges. Often it's very good to talk about this in the press so there's a big splash, but these are not actual real money that is being pledged or that is being talked about. And then the biggest issue is really the issue of access. We have to understand that indigenous peoples are diverse. We live in different contexts, we have different legal realities and so we cannot have one mechanism that indigenous peoples can easily access. The years and years of discrimination that indigenous peoples have to go through is also a very big limitation for our ability to access these resources. So I urge those who have control over these resources to look at flexible mechanisms that allow for the different ways by which indigenous peoples do their things so that they can submit proposals, they can actually access this funding. And of course I hope that funding should go to actually supporting the self-determined priorities of indigenous peoples. When I say this, I mean, yes, we all talk about climate adaptation, we'll talk about global environmental benefits. Indigenous peoples do not look at our territory to tourist this way. So this funding should go towards the self-determined priorities and often these priorities will actually address the priorities of climate and biodiversity. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mili. You raised very important points, not only on quantity but also on quality of finance and access, which is very crucial. Thank you. Now I'll move to Melina, co-founder for Global Youth by Dervis Dineotork. You have four minutes. Thank you very much. Good morning everyone. My name is Melina and I'm here representing the Global Youth by Dervis Dineotork, which is the International Youth Coordination Plan. It's the International Youth Coordination Plan for the Convention on Biological Diversity. And as Mili said, I'm very happy with the results of this report. We have been conducting youth consultations among over 100 countries in our community around the world. And we have been asking them about their future vision for biodiversity and our relationship with nature, but also how we can implement this vision and a lot of the responses had to do with resources, but not only the quantity as Mili said, the quality and the access. And I think like in order to really benefit the real implementers of all these conventions because I think we have to be honest with each other. Like this triple planetary crisis, I think it's not even triple. I think it's multiple. Like it's a systemic crisis. We are not going to be able to solve it with one button of technology, you know, or like one decision making from one person or one body. It's going to be a whole of society approach. And the ones that are going to be implementing that is going to be the local people, Indigenous peoples and local communities especially because they are the front lines. But citizens like urban dwellers like young people, we are 50% of the world. Women, we are also 50% of the world. These are the people that are already resisting and doing all the work. And they are the ones that have the flexibility to go through the cracks of the system to make the real solutions like being implemented. It's not going to be at the big national level. For instance, I come from Brazil. It's really difficult to create impact at the national level because we are so trapped by the system, right? So we need to really be able to find ways in the cracks of the system to support these groups. But for first, we need to understand that we need to decolonize our mindsets. Local people and like small people, they are not ignorant. They know what they are doing. They have been doing this for ages. So it's not for them to adapt to the financial systems. It's for the financial systems to do what they can to adapt to their way and their views of what the project should be or what the work should be. So I would advise to co-create monitoring and evaluation systems together with local communities and women and youth because that will make the whole framework more efficient and more adaptable to those communities. Because at the moment all of this is restricting the action and limiting the impact that these groups can have. The other issue is the issue of intermediaries, the middlemen. The more intermediaries we have, the less the poor will be the impact. I think if we really want to help those people, we need to start to find legitimated representatives. So no tokenism, right? Before you start your project, create an actor map of all the stakeholders involved and try to get the people that are already existing in collectives, in associations, in movements and bring them on the table. They will let you know who are the best organizations or the best local mechanisms to access funds and to distribute the funds to the people that really need. Also, be sure to involve these people in the governance system. So hire or invite these people, these representatives, the legitimated funds to join boards and committees for decision making because they will be the ones that are going to bring their whole network of local actors that are already implementing a lot of these decisions on ground. So sorry. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Melina. Thank you for raising a very important point. It's good we've been doing things in silos. Now we understand that we have triple crisis and it will be easy to address the multiple crisis if we cognize that there is a triple crisis. And the other important point, the whole of society approach, to bring in all actors to be on board to be part of the solution is very crucial, especially the use of women issue needs to be addressed and the intermediaries, which is very crucial. And currently most research show that only 10% of the global climate finance reaching to the local communities. That means there are a number of intermediaries in between. So we need to address that if we want really solution and impact on the ground. Thank you. My service speaker will be John Culling, co-founder of the indigenous peoples and major groups for sustainable development. John, you have the floor. Thank you. I don't want to repeat what has been mentioned already earlier, but just to flag the report in terms of the reference to the need for a human rights based approach. And that is the one that we need to translate into real actions on the ground. And when we're talking of indigenous peoples, we need the enabling environment for us to be able to continue our role as stewards of nature. And that is the protection of our rights, the protection of our rights to our lands, territories and resources, because with that protection it also protects our knowledge, it also protects our sustainable use of resources. It also ensures that we are part of the decision making process as rights holders. Funding cannot just come because people think we need funds to do local adaptation. Funds should come with our decisions on how that is going to be used and how that is aligned to our principles and values of sustainability on how it is aligned to upholding our well-being. That is what we mean by supporting local actions. It cannot be in isolation to the protection and exercise of our rights. And so we need to also change the narrative to look at indigenous peoples more as partners, more as actors, not just vulnerable groups, not just poor people needing funds. That's not what we're asking for. What we're asking is a recognition that we're contributing to the world and we deserve support like anyone else who are marginalized. And that should be the frame of the kind of funding that puts us at the middle of doing our role in stewarding nature and the importance that we do participate in decision making. Thank you. Thank you, John, for being in time and precisely mentioning the issue of rights, protecting the rights, and I agree with you we need to have really our rights to be involved in the process from planning to implementation. So we need to be part of the resource allocation as well as the planning process. Otherwise, top-down planning is not really helpful. We see kind of one-fit-for-all approach using top-down multi-country programs that are not really sustainable. So I agree with you and we all need to be partners. I think we need to move from victim's narrative into real partners in being part of the solution. Thank you very much. One final speaker will be joining us virtually. Joseph Muturi is a community leader from Kenya and chair of the SLAMS, Dwellers International Board. Joseph, are you on board? Yeah, you have the floor. Four minutes. Thank you very much. I hope you can all hear me clearly. Yes, very clear. Thank you very much and our appreciation on behalf of SDI for giving us this opportunity to be part of this. And I think I'll pick up from where the other presenters were talking about in terms of priority, in terms of where the resources should go. But first of all, personally, I think the discussion around climate change and the impact has always been very elitist. And I think we need to look at the ways how do we localise the climate change discussions. These discussions on climate change, they happen at summits like these, conferences like these, COP26, very high level, very exotic, nice places. But I think we should focus more on now looking at what are the local communities doing. How do we localise that discussion? And how do we continuously create awareness at local communities in terms of what is happening with the environment and climate change? So in terms of where the resources should go, that is number one, we create more awareness. We localise the climate change discussion and also it's also to enable communities to design solutions that work for them. I remember one of the speakers say that one says does not fit all. How do we look at, let communities design and we find solutions that work for them. The other thing we need to look at in terms of where the resources should go is to amplify the voices of marginalised communities on climate change. So number one is to promote their contribution to mitigation and adaptation. The other thing is also increase the acceptability of alternative solutions to mitigation and adaptation. And I think we have so many initiatives coming from all over the world in terms of telecommittees, you should do this, you should do that, this shouldn't happen. And I think it's where we are saying how do we continuously accept what are the alternative solutions if you look at the issues of energy. What are the alternative solutions that communities have in regards to energy? The other thing we need to look at and I think we need to emphasise on is the issue of all these funding cannot come in the absence of plans. How do we put resources in the development of adaptation plans? So that address adaptation and mitigation priorities and I hear a lot of speakers have been talking about priorities. So at city level, at national level, you'll find that their priorities are usually very, very different from what. You'll find some cities, some national governments spend so much resources on conferences and workshops at the expense of whatever committees are doing real work, putting that in their hands. So those are the things that we need to look at in terms of priority. So the other thing is also to look at what are the priority projects that we need to fund at the local level. Because if you look at the committees, all committees are doing something in their own local way in terms of addressing adaptation in terms of resilience strategies. But they are not getting any support from the city, from the national government, even from other funders. So how do we make sure that these resources cascade and support these initiatives? And how do we amplify those initiatives that people can be replicated elsewhere by other communities? So the last one I think is to facilitate the establishment of a framework for local level funding. I think there needs to be a framework. I think in Kenya they are pushed by county governments. This is the last point to create world committees and these world committees at the community level and at the city level to prepare communities to receive resources for their plans to be funded. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you just for raising very important points. But I would like to just highlight a few of them. Increasing awareness at the local level is very crucial and engaging them in the overall process, including resource allocation, designing process, which is also very crucial. And one thing which is very important is like promote their contribution for the adaptation and mitigation efforts at the global level. That's I think very crucial. And we need to think the other way. They are also part of the global solution. They are doing what they can. So promoting and recognizing their role at local level that they will have impact and they will have contribution for the global efforts is very crucial. Thank you. Thank you, Joseph. So I would like to thank all our presenters for their reflections and informing the following boardroom discussion. I now invite the following three speakers to kick off the boardroom discussion by reflecting on what they have already heard and identify what changes they are making in their context to give the indigenous pupils and local communities and other local actors and organizations, agents and decision making over finance. First, I will start with Alain French, director for strategic analysis and global engagement rights and resource initiative. Alain, you have two minutes. Thank you. At the rights and resources, I'll summarize what we've done in five points. First, we shifted the makeup of our coalition and board to ensure that is led by the majority of rights holders and organizations and representatives. Second, we systematically positioned indigenous peoples, local communities, Afro-descendant peoples and women within these groups as the primary agents of change at local, national and global levels, both in terms of their research and engagement. In doing so, we worked to create inclusive spaces for dialogue and inclusion of indigenous and community representatives and the decisions that affect their rights and well-being. Third, we created dedicated channels and mechanisms to directly finance indigenous peoples and local communities via the strategic response mechanism, the establishment of the tenure facility several years ago, and more recently the creation of the community land rights and conservation finance initiatives, or CLARIFY, which will aim to directly support self-determined priorities of communities. Fourth, we recently launched a global call to action to accelerate dedicated financing to women-led initiatives and priorities at the grassroots level. Finally, we established a path-to-scale process, which is an informal initiative comprised of representatives from donors, philanthropies, rights holders that aims to ramp up ambition and support for indigenous and community rights. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Alan. Now I'll move to Pauline Buffer, Programme Officer for the Conservation Programme at UCL, Forest and Farm Facility. Paul, you have the floor. Thank you. Thank you. So, I'm here representing the Forest and Farm Facility, and we'd like to share a bit of our experience because as mentioned in the report, we have around a decade of experience in channeling finance to the local level with around 70 million dispersed, more than 900 local organisations and FFPO's. So, I will talk a bit more about the FFPO's because those are the Forest and Farm producer organisations. We strongly believe in FFF that that's where a lot of the finance should be channeled. So, those FFPO's are usually locally led, democratically elected organisations that are really organised from the bottom up. And it's an umbrella term, not always ideal, but that we really want to say since they are self-organised from the bottom up, they can be indigenous territorial organisations, local community organisations, but they are also farmers' organisations and I do not hear a lot about farmers here and I do think it's really crucial to also have the farmers who will have Elizabeth talking about that a bit more. But they can also be corporatives or SMEs. So, why do we believe they're a good mean to get finance to the ground is they have the scale, sometimes they have a few dozen of members, but sometimes they have hundreds or thousands of millions of members under their constituencies. And of course, because they are self-organised from the ground up, they are anchored in local reality. They really know the issues, know the problems. And those organisations, they usually provide multiple services to their members to which they are accountable to. So, they can help in policy influencing for access to land, they also provide social and cultural services. They also provide market access and they already provide access to finance as well and they are organised to do so. So, we strongly believe that when enable and strengthen, they are the organisations that can get money where it matters. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Pauline. Now I move to Laura Adobo, a technical adviser, child rights, climate change and health environment, Save the Children in Sweden. Thank you so much. I save the children. Our key stakeholders are children and young people under 18 and we are accountable primarily to them and their communities. We consciously focus on children most affected by discrimination, including children with disabilities and children from indigenous groups. Just to mention a few, from an organisational commitment side, we work from a human rights based approach. Our approach was mentioned a lot today, which recognises children and adults' human rights, but also recognises states obligations and duties towards those rights. And as such, so we speak about child participation as a right, it's not like as a privilege or as a wish as was also mentioned today. And it's a right recognised by many treaties, not only the Convention on the Rights of the Child and also an agenda at 2030. We have endorsed the local adaptation principles in 2021, and our new strategy has a big emphasis on shifting powers to children, but also to communities and local organisations. We have a localisation strategy, so there's a big wish to really improve this work, but also a child centre social accountability approach that we have also like is guiding our work towards that. A very important step forward for us. We work with children, but they set the agenda. So what we can do is accompany them and make sure that they have the spaces and the opportunities to make the changes in laws, policies, budgets, etc. But one important aspect is information. It was mentioned for other groups, but also for children, for local communities, for their parents, the adults around them, they need to know what can they do and how. And how can the access to resources is one of those things. Of course we have challenges many and we are an INGO and we have internal structures and internal challenges, which I'm sure many of the people here share. And we're working towards improving things and I'm not going to do it in details. But two opportunities I want to mention that we have and I think that can set the stage for Save the Children is that we have, we've worked with SIDA actually civil society section from SIDA provides funding for many years now through Save Sweden. 70% has to go to the local organisations. Only 30%, which is still a lot, but 30% saves and saves children. And that includes we're trying to see how it can also reach unregistered groups of children and civil society. Another, what just one example is the Green Climate Fund. We just received an approval for a project which actually where we really made sure in Vanuatu where we try to really include we consulted with thousands of people across three provinces to actually and most of these people are from indigenous groups to actually set the develop this project. And I think that's also a good way forward to show us how to move forward with this work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lara. I have a list of speakers interventions for two minutes. After I exhaust I will open for other interested participants to intervene. Now, I move to our virtual participant, Violet Shevets, Chair, Hyrule Commission. Violet, are you online? Yeah, you have there for two minutes. Thank you. Wairu Commission is a global movement of grassroots women led organisations. It has been 50 years since Stockholm and 25 years since the Wairu Commission was founded at the Beijing Women's Conference. In that time, we have seen some remarkable changes in the ways that governments talk about communities and the importance of grassroots organisations and local action. We have seen some forward looking donors such as CEDA, the Dutch and the Swiss begin to challenge investments to grassroots women organisations. This has been hugely impactful. However, it is not enough to realise the local action principles we rely on those donors who have supported locally led action to do two things. First, actively reach out to climate finance institutions and government and advocate for co-campaign with us as grassroots organisations to stimulate greater investments in grassroots organisations worldwide through devolved finance and decision making. Second, in collaboration with forward looking donors, we have come to learn some important lessons that could help us further faster. And that is the importance of establishing trusting relationships and identifying collaborative approaches to manage financial risk and ensure the accountability that we are all deeply committed to. We seek your commitment for transparency dialogue and collaboration as this will provide important tools for us, other partners to use in their effort to realise political commitment to community led action. We look forward to working with you all at this pivotal point so that in the next 50 years we can make a healthy planet for the prosperity of us all and a realistic one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now I'll move to El Dabed, president of East African Farmers Federation. Thank you. I come here representing over 25 million smallholder farmers at regional level and also over 80 million smallholder farmers at continental level. And first and foremost, as producer organisations, we have never received climate financing as primary recipients. After 26 years of global climate change meetings, we still experience devastating and impoverished local communities as a result of the impacts of climate change. And this is so because we don't have safety nets. And that's why, you know, shocks like the Ukraine always push smallholder farmers into oblivion. It's regrettable that climate financing is not targeted, is not impactful and is not inclusive to the most vulnerable who are the producer organisations and the indigenous communities. We therefore need producer organisations to be accredited entities using less stringent requirements that are coupled with internal capacity development that would allow them to access climate change financing as primary recipients. We also demand handholding by the larger agencies that are already receiving climate financing. Having said that, we have also incorporated climate change as part of our strategic plan and we are implementing climate smart technologies through mobile digital platforms like the e-granary platform that aggregates farmers for input services and output markets. You can read more about that on our website. And this platform also assists farmers in terms of decision making within a supporting value chain and partnership ecosystem. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Sabit. Now I'll move to Will Charus, a user representative. Hi, my name is William Charouas. I'm 16 years old and I'm from Miami, Florida. Both my school and my city sit on our bay and I've been deemed as ground zero for sea level rising climate change within the past decade. Because of this, I founded my youth organisation called We Are Forces of Nature in an attempt to help halt sea level rise as well as climate change. Recently, a project I've been working on is the A Million Mangroves project with the aim to plant a million mangroves because mangroves do two main things. Number one, help stop soil erosion and number two, they help take carbon out of the atmosphere at a much more efficient rate than forests and grow much faster as well. However, financing for this project has been an issue and after talking with our mayors, I've learned that when taxing citizens for climate related issues, they're less likely to pay because some may feel climate change is not a tangible issue and are unwilling to give their tax money to a problem that they can't see and end to within the next coming years. However, I'd like to end on a positive note and state that our mayor, with the help of the youth, with the pushing of the youth voice, our mayors of Miami, Miami Beach pushed forward a climate resilience plan worth $200 million focused on solutions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Will. Thank you. Now, I'll move to Salimul, a director for ICOT, you have two minutes. Thank you very much, Chair. Good morning, everybody. My name is Salimul Haq. I'm the director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University of Bangladesh. I'd like to share one of the roles that needs to be done in bridging this big divide between local actors, national decision makers and global actors, which is ineffective intermediation. One of the potential intermediates that we are working with are universities. Every country, even the poorest country has more than one university. We run a network of universities in the least developed countries called the LDC University's Consortium on Climate Change, where one of our major actions is on promoting and supporting locally led adaptation to climate change, but also providing the evidence to decision makers at the national level to ensure that the voices of the most vulnerable figure in decision making at the top level. Universities play a potentially very important intermediation role with respect to knowledge generation, evidence gathering and advocacy for decision making at the national level. I won't go into more details because we have an event at 12.15 today. I'll invite you to come and listen more about the work that we're doing in the least developed countries. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Salim. Now I'll move to our virtual participants. Monica from GCF, are you alive? Yes, you have two minutes. Thank you for inviting me to this session and congratulations to IIED and CEDA for the new report, which is, I think, a very important piece of work. The Green Climate Fund is the world's largest climate fund. We have a portfolio of $10 billion and almost one half of that is for adaptation projects around the developing countries of the world. So we are a big contributor to even to some of the speakers before me in different projects. About adaptation, there are, of course, different types of adaptation projects. I think the ones that I would like to mention today are about ecosystem management but also about self-sufficiency agriculture and some of the other more commercial activities that depend on nature and that local communities are faced with always but also in the era of climate change. I would like to acknowledge the local competence of people living in an area, competence for how to manage the local environment, but also competence in many other aspects like was mentioned by previous speakers to offer services locally based on the prevailing context. However, we must also remember that even a local community can be faced with unknown threats and climate change is in fact a new threat and there are many ecosystems around the world where we do not know exactly what is happening. We owe also the respect to people who can be in place and contribute to the monitoring of change in these systems and that can be for example systems in mountainous areas or in arid areas or also in many ocean based ecosystems. Where we rely on people being in this area to monitor change so that we know what we should do. One of the challenges is to reach or to proceed private capital to these people and to their endeavours. We see quite a lot of ground financed support still and I think this is a challenge. We try to contribute by supporting that for example we've been supporting in Rwanda together with IUCM that people's management and people's work is valued so that they can get local credits not only based on their asset collateral but also based on their actual work that they do management and they do local forestry management in their communities. I think you have used your time. Yep, thank you. Thank you, thank you very much Monica. Now let's move to the next speaker, Paul Artsman, a senior environmental specialist in the forestry management program coordinator of climate investment funds. You have two minutes. Thank you. I just want to start by congratulating Will and thanking him and youth like him for being a little bit of optimism and otherwise occasionally bleak landscape of trying to address climate change. The climate investment funds or CIF is a $10 billion fund in one of the world's largest multilateral finance mechanisms for developing countries to shift to low carbon and climate resilient development. I want to talk today about our dedicated grant mechanism which is a module under our forest investment program specifically targeting indigenous people in local communities. The mechanism grew out of the design phase of the FIP or the forest investment program when IPLC observers stressed the need for dedicated resources to help them build their capacity and participate in program implementation. By investing $80 million globally, and that's real money, not a pledge, the FIP is supporting community led context specific projects that draw on local expertise to advance sustainable forest stewardship. What's really unique about the program is its governance, so it's led by indigenous people and local communities at every level. These groups are both leaders and beneficiaries of DGM activities, and it helps to ensure that the funding is demand driven and attuned to their interests. Within 12 countries that this mechanism works, there are more than 600 sub-projects benefiting 250,000 people and supporting the management of 185,000 hectares of land. The CIF, the World Bank who is the program lead and conservation international who is the global executing agency, have no part in decision making. That's entirely IPLC driven, but serve as observers and provide support. Now this approach has become key to the CIF's way of trying to provide a greater voice and role to IPLC as a manager of natural resources. We have a new program called the Nature People Climate, which aligns very well with 0.5 of this report, and within that we will again implement a dedicated grant mechanism. Just very briefly, I think one of the points that was made here is about the pledges that have been made, and I think we do need to learn as many were saying about where and how funding goes. I hope that this program, this mechanism can be a model that can help in the broader community thinking through this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Our next speaker will be Sally Haddobard. She is a senior climate change specialist from Adaptation Fund. Thank you. My name is Sally Haddobard, and indeed I am with the Adaptation Fund, which is a fund created under the UNF triple. C that will soon celebrate 15 years of its launch. We are, we have around 924 or so million dollars in investments in over 100 countries. So we operate throughout the developing world, and about 130 projects currently under implementation are already implemented, and our portfolio is growing. So we are also, I think, may be best known for pioneering the direct access modality, which basically means that countries can, or national institutions, can directly apply to the fund for funding, and then when their proposal is approved, the money is transferred directly to the countries without intermediaries. And this modality has since been adopted further. We also were among the first wave of institutions and countries that adopted the locally led action principles. I believe that was in January 2021. And we did it because actually it was quite aligned with the way we work anyway. Our policies promote locally led adaptation, and we have safeguards that I've heard people mention certain issues such as access and equity. That's our principle two among our 15 principles, marginalized and vulnerable groups, human rights. Those are principles three and four respectively, and principle seven, which is on indigenous people. So for every project, the presence of indigenous people has to be identified. And then the project has to be consistent with the 2007 UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people. So it's important to us. On the direct access, I just want to mention, as a way of supporting locally led action, we have since developed additional ways that further devolve decision on finance to further localized levels. So we have the enhanced direct access. So now when we transfer the funding to the national institution, it's for a project that then the national institution transfers funding further to devolves decision on financing to more local institutions or collectives or communities. And just one last point. We have also recently launched the adaptation fund climate innovation accelerator, which also provides grants at a sub national level to collectives communities and so on. And we have had recipients that are indigenous people. Happy to talk more about it whoever is interested. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Celia. Now we have Steve Trawick, director of climate and environment department, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation. You have the floor. Thank you. And thank you so much to IID for taking this initiative and congratulations to Sweden and CIDA for the Stockholm Plus 50. You were leaders then and we still look to you to learn. So thank you for taking this initiative as well. I think we're here because we all recognize that in order to tackle the climate and nature crisis to stop the loss of natural ecosystems in farmland is really what it's about. For about a decade Norway has been investing a lot in protection of tropical forest systems. And one of the things that we have learned there is that the single most effective way to achieve that is to support indigenous peoples rights. So we hear very clearly what indigenous people say. It's not just about throwing out big numbers. It's about how you work the way you structure your work the way you have dialogue. We're very happy to see also during last year that the food system summit recognized indigenous peoples food systems as a game changing solution to the crisis that we're facing. We think that's something that should be acted on. We have recognized we're trying to work more and more directly with the partners that access the local level. We also have some direct partnerships that we recognize that we need to become better partners. We need to become better at partnering. So we're right now in the process of looking at our own systems to see how we can simplify and take away procedures that are unnecessary and that make it easier for us to be good partners also at the local level. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Now we have Alrik Aksen, Lead Policy Specialist, Environment and Climate Change, SIDA. You have the minutes. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Karen laid the ground in her introductory remarks I think on how SIDA works on locally led action. But just to add to that and to start off, the principles for locally led action has been mentioned. They are mentioned in the report and has been very important for SIDA. We are signatories to them since 2021. And I think these eight principles have been fundamental components of Swedish Development Corporation for quite some time already before we signed them. But as Steve also mentioned, I think as done is we can do more. We can do more of this and we are committed to facilitating inclusive locally led action in vulnerable context. And the endorsement of the principles has proven an important step I think in this direction. And also the recommendations in the report, we will really take them into action. And I think they are all directed at us as donors from this perspective. But I also hope that governments and multilateral development banks and global funds do take these five recommendations into genuine consideration ahead. But and a few points on what I think we also can do more of. I think we can look into our bilateral programs. We can see how what we can do to really involve actors in genuine participation in developmental programs. Not the least youth women indigenous groups and have a broad participation of actors. And also look at what are the actual barriers and build on traditional and local knowledge in how we go about our support to various programs. And I think if we don't do this, we can also have a huge risk, not the least when it comes to maladaptation that we haven't talked so much about today, but as one example. And also to learn between organizations. I think we need to come together as partners, as donors and sharing experiences on how to do this. Also have a vertical and horizontal dialogue going between each other to kind of move this agenda forward. And also to do cross fertilization between funds and allow demand driven programs with participatory methods and results as we go. I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Erica. So thank you very much. I have now exhausted the list of speakers. Any one or two delegates who want to intervene. Anyone wants, you can raise your hand. Yes, Professor Miza. Just two minutes each. I have two queries, very simple and small. Those eight principles are very sacrosanct and pious and the ZCA uses the word transformative adaptation. So how to apply those principles because in developing countries we have more or less very centralized system. So how to transform those principles into reality? This is a question because then we need to kind of question the power structure. And my second point is about locally led finance. Few organizations multilateral already have initiated the expedited direct access process led by the adaptation fund for US ago. But those little funds will not do. If we want to make a difference, then we need to think of bigger funding flowing to the local level. In Bangladesh, for example, Grameenbank or Brach experience shows that if the women get little funding with some little capacitation, they can do miracles. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miza. Thank you very much. My name is Francisco Cali. I am the Special Reporter on Indigenous Peoples' Rights of the United Nations. So I just wanted to congratulate the release of the report and I want to stress that an Indigenous human rights approach is needed at the same as all the speakers were talking or they were explaining today. And please just to inform you that this year I will present a report on the protected area where I'm going to have some recommendation for state and environmental institutions. So please be ready to read this recommendation. And also I just wanted to say that all the funds that you were talking about here has to be taken into account Article 29 of the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And of course just a clarification. I know that you are very aware of this, but some states are trying to confuse them and trying to rest the power of the right of Indigenous people using local communities. Local communities are not the same that Indigenous people. So please be aware of this. Indigenous people, they have rights from 50 years ago. They have their own voices in the United Nations and all the international forests. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. With this I will just briefly highlight a few just two, three summary points. Overall my overall observations throughout this process is that it's not to blame anyone, but we have gone a long journey. But that was a very expensive way of learning. We have limitations across the value chain. From accessing finance, the quality, the quantity of finance, accessibility and the key stakeholders who have been omitted or less engaged. All these things clearly show that we need to really adjust the multiple crisis. So from that I think it's a kind of take-home assignment for everyone, just not for the future, even for active projects and programs to check and look our service, how we can adjust. Otherwise the business as usual way of doing things will keep us in the vicious circle of challenges that we are just here. So if you want sustainable impact we all need to adjust our mode of work. That's in summary what I want to say with this. I would like to thank you all for your really insightful presentations and interventions. Then now finally I will give to Ulrika and Iboni for their final closing remarks. Thank you very much and thank you for that summary. It was excellent. I only want to say two things actually. The one and maybe the most important is that the relevance for all of us to support and increase our support for locally led action has really become even more evident when listening to all of your challenges, but also all of the solutions that you have been providing during this one and a half hours. So thank you very much for that. All actors are important, but there is one thing that we always have to remember. We talk about people-centered approach, human rights-based approach, etc. It all boils down to that all of us are subjects in our own lives, no matter where we are active, and that is the most important approach in all of this. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, folks. What a really fantastic discussion. It's been really great to hear the different perspectives, the different changes and shifts that are underway in the finance system to hopefully enable more locally led action. My name is Ebony Holland. I'm one of the authors of the report and I'm also here with Sergio Patel, one of the co-authors as well, and it's really fantastic to have all of you here for this discussion at Stockholm Plus 50. I guess I don't want to try and sort of rehash what's already been said. There's been some fantastic points already made. There are two things I just want to reflect on quickly in closing. The first is that I think what we're hearing is that there's this sort of groundswell of movement within the finance system to support more locally led action, which is absolutely fantastic. But I think what we need to see is that move from being niche programs to being scaled up, scaled out to be actually really business as usual within the finance system. And I think we're starting to see some really fantastic movement toward that. We identify some of the trends in the report suggesting that, so I think that's fantastic. The second point I want to make is actually a point that Melina mentioned right at the very start, which is around, you know, this is a partnership approach. This is a way that we all come together. This is not about, you know, requiring Indigenous people, local communities, youth, women, farmers, et cetera, to bend to the finance system. This is about seeing how the finance system can meet them halfway and really embrace the Indigenous, a cultural, traditional knowledge experience, et cetera, that they bring. So I think this discussion gives me great hope. And certainly from IID's perspective, we're very grateful to CEDA for their own leadership with locally led action, but also for commissioning the report. And we certainly hope that through this report and through all of the great people here and also listening online that we can work together to really push this for the next 50 years of action. Thank you.