The second State of Funding for Tenure Rights report provides an updated analysis of international donor funding for Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples (IPs, LCs, and ADPs) in tropical countries from 2011 to 2024. This year includes an expanded scope to all terrestrial ecosystems, recognizing the importance of tracking funding beyond forests. Below we provide a set of findings from the second Annual "State of Funding" Report, including progress against the Path to Scale targets, a review of funding by FTFG donors, and a breakdown of regional funding trends. Learn more about our data collection, processing pipeline, and other details on the methodology page.

Funding for IP, LC, and ADP tenure rights has increased sharply since 2021, but declines since the 2021 peak signal a need for renewed momentum. Since the Pledge (a 5-year commitment starting in 2021), annual funding has averaged $728 million per year—a 46 percent increase since the preceding four-year period. The Pledge has succeeded in mobilizing new resources, with over half of the increase attributable to Pledge signatories from 2021 to 2024.

In 2024, however, total disbursements dropped to $642 million, down 23 percent since the first year of the Pledge. As many donors fund in multi-year cycles, it remains to be seen if this downward trend is durable or will bounce back.

The trend of increasing funding is particularly strong among FTFG donors, showing the effect of this collective commitment on individual donor’s disbursements. Overall, FTFG members have increased their collective annual disbursement by 47 percent relative to 2017-2020, and 112 percent relative to 2011-2020.

From 2021 to 2024, FTFG donors directly reported $1.4 billion (current USD) in disbursements and expenditures. Although FTFG annual reports use a mixture of commitments and disbursements (among other methodological differences), at current trajectory FTFG donors are on track to meet or exceed the original $1.7B pledge of committed funding.

The post-Pledge period has brought progress toward a more balanced regional distribution of funding, particularly for Africa and Asia, but signs of slowdown are emerging. Historically, donor funding was largely concentrated in Latin America, but the Pledge catalyzed more rapid growth in other regions. While funding increases have leveled off in Latin America and not matched the growth rate of Africa or Asia, all regions have witnessed some level of growth over the last four years. In 2023 and 2024, the rate of growth in disbursements has leveled off across all three regions, reflected by the 23 percent decline in global funding since 2021.

In Africa, disbursements have stabilized at a higher level, averaging $208 million annually from 2021–2024 (48 percent above the prior four-year period) driven largely by major World Bank and GEF projects. Asia, by contrast, saw steady growth from 2018 onward, only to experience a sharp 27 percent decline in 2024 as several large multilateral projects concluded or slowed down, pulling total funding back towards pre-Pledge levels.

Although foundations remain more heavily invested in Latin America than in Africa or Asia, the share of their total funding going to Africa grew significantly between 2021 and 2024.

While donor attention and funding for IPs, LCs, and ADPs have scaled up significantly since 2020, donors are not on track to reach the Path to Scale targets. Starting in 2020, the Path to Scale—an informal initiative that aims to scale-up global ambition to legally recognize the land and resource rights of IPs, LCs, and ADPs—set a target of $10 billion by 2030 to secure an additional 400 million hectares of tropical forest under the stewardship of IPs, LCs, and ADPs. Maintaining the current pace of disbursements (annual average of 2021-2024) over the next five years, we project that without catalyzing additional investment, donors will fall short of this target by $2.9 billion. The figure below shows that maintaining 2021’s peak annual rate would still leave a $2.1 billion gap, while a return to pre-Pledge levels would expand the shortfall to $4.7 billion.

To read more about funding trends in 2024, please refer to the "State of Funding" Report.