Incheon, April 8-10, 2026
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) Global Conference with Indigenous Peoples, held in Incheon, Republic of Korea from 8 to 10 April 2026, brought together a wide range of stakeholders to reflect on how climate finance can better support Indigenous Peoples’ priorities and leadership. Organized across three days, the conference moved from setting the stage to translating policy into practice, and ultimately to identifying concrete pathways for strengthening Indigenous-led climate action.
Within this framework, Session 2-4 on Accredited Entity perspectives provided a space to share practical experiences from GCF-supported projects. Moderated by Ms. Ramona Calin, the panel brought together Ms. Khaoula Jaoui (Sahara and Sahel Observatory), Mr. Keletso Mike Seabo (Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Botswana), Ms. Claudia Godfrey (Profonanpe, Peru), Mr. Yiaheu Touavang (GIZ), and Mr. Josep Garí (UNDP), offering complementary insights into how Indigenous Peoples are engaged across project design, implementation, and decision-making processes.
Across the discussion, a common understanding emerged: while consultation is widely embedded in project processes, achieving meaningful inclusion requires approaches that are more adaptive, context-specific, and responsive to the realities of Indigenous communities.
Reflecting on the experience of the CREW Angola project, Ms. Khaoula Jaoui highlighted how participation evolves across the project cycle. During the design phase, engagement is often structured but constrained by contextual factors, including the limited formal recognition of Indigenous Peoples in national frameworks and the mobility of semi-nomadic communities such as the Himba and Khoi-San. In such contexts, inclusion must remain open and anticipatory, allowing space for participation rather than assuming fixed engagement from the outset.
As projects move into implementation, participation becomes more tangible, yet also more complex. Engagement must adapt to the presence and movement of communities, relying on flexible, trust-based approaches and locally anchored structures that support decision-making at the community level, while ensuring that mechanisms for dialogue and accountability remain accessible and culturally appropriate.
These reflections align with one of the key messages highlighted during the session: participation is not a single step, but a continuous and evolving process. As emphasized during the panel, “when we talk about involving communities—particularly Indigenous Peoples—the real question is not whether we consult them, but when, how, and to what extent they actually shape the project.”
Ultimately, the exchanges in Session 2-4 underscored a broader conclusion shared across the conference: advancing meaningful inclusion requires flexibility, not only from communities, but also from institutions, Accredited Entities, and financial partners, so that climate action can be shaped with, and not only for, Indigenous Peoples.