The Ford Foundation have announced a five-year, $85 million initiative that will make rural and indigenous people a stronger part of the world's response to climate change, saying that engaging these populations is essential to reducing poverty and building long-term climate solutions.

The focused will be on six key regions, the initiative will empower rural communities whose livelihoods depend on natural resources to play a more active role in the stewardship of those resources. The foundation will also work with the global organizations, multilateral founders and governments that are set to invest billions of dollars over the coming years in climate change programs that will affect these communities.

Working with NGOs, governments, other founders and rural communities themselves, Ford's grants will help:

• Develop the advocacy skills of rural leaders so they have a stronger voice in how natural resources are managed
• Demonstrate successful models of community management of resources and ensure that the lessons of this work are informing national and global policy
• Promote public investment that benefits rural communities and acknowledges their role as stewards of valuable natural assets
• Ensure that global climate change programs account for and address the needs of indigenous communities and the rural poor
• Strengthen institutions and networks that advance this approach

Ford's grant making is focused on low-income populations situated in forests, grasslands, marginal agricultural land and other rural regions in six areas where the foundation maintains a regional office: Brazil, Indonesia, China, Eastern Africa, Mexico and Central America, and India. Rural communities in these areas depend on the natural resources around them for their basic livelihoods, yet most have limited rights to access and utilize them, or suffer from poor levels of public investment to augment returns from their use of these resources.

This work is integral to Ford's contributions to poverty reduction, which includes strengthening the livelihoods of the rural poor and promoting economic security through social policies that promote financial inclusion and reduced vulnerability to shocks.

Source: FORD FOUNDATION