UNITED NATIONS, Dec 1 2025 (IPS) – As we gather in Doha for the High-Level Meeting on “Forging Ambitious Global Partnerships for Sustainable and Resilient Graduation of Least Developed Countries,” the stakes could not be higher. A record number of fourteen countries-equally divided between Asia and Africa are now on graduation track. Graduation from the Least Developed Country (LDC) category is a landmark national achievement—a recognition of hard-won gains in income, human development, and resilience. Yet, for too many countries, this milestone comes with new vulnerabilities that risk undermining the very gains that enabled graduation.
Since the establishment of the LDC category in 1971, only eight countries have graduated. Today, 44 countries remain in the group, representing 14% of the world’s population, but contributing less than 1.3% to global GDP. The Doha Programme of Action (DPoA) charts an ambitious yet achievable target: enabling at least 15 additional countries to graduate by 2031. But as the DPoA underscores graduation must be sustainable, resilient and irreversible. It must serve as a springboard for transformation— not a moment of exposure to new risks.
USG Rabab Fatima
Graduation with momentum: Graduation often coincides with a significant shift in the international support landscape. As preferential trade arrangements, concessional financing, and dedicated technical assistance begin to phase down, countries may face heightened fiscal pressures, reduced competitiveness, and increased exposure to external shocks. Without well-sequenced and forward-looking transition planning, these shifts can slow progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and strain national systems.
Yet within these challenges also lie opportunities. With the right policies, partnerships, and incentives, graduation can catalyse deeper structural transformation, expand access to new financing windows, strengthen institutions, and unlock pathways to diversified, resilient, and inclusive growth. The task before us is to manage risks while harnessing these opportunities—ensuring that no country graduates without momentum.
Smooth Transition Strategies: A National Imperative The DPoA calls for every graduating country to develop inclusive, nationally owned Smooth Transition Strategies (STS) well-ahead of the graduation date. These strategies must be fully integrated into national development plans and SDG frameworks, ensuring coherence and resilience. They should prioritize diversification, human capital investment, and adaptive governance, while placing women, youth, and local actors at the center of design and oversight. STS must be living documents—flexible, participatory, and backed by robust monitoring and financing.
Reinvigorated Global Partnerships: The essential Pillar No country can navigate this transition alone. The Doha Programme of Action calls for an incentive-based international support structure that extends beyond graduation. For LDCs with high utilization of trade preferences – the withdrawal of preferential market access must be carefully sequenced to avoid abrupt disruptions. For climate-vulnerable SIDS and LLDCs, enhanced access to climate finance, debt solutions, and resilience support are key elements in their efforts to tackle post-graduation challenges.
Deepened South-South and triangular cooperation, innovative financing instruments, blended finance, and strengthened private-sector engagement will be essential to building productive capacities and unlocking opportunities in digital transformation, green and blue economies, and regional market integration.
iGRAD: A Transformative Tool The operationalization of the Sustainable Graduation Support Facility—iGRAD—is a concrete step forward. By providing tailored advisory services, capacity-building, and peer learning, iGRAD can serve as a critical tool to help countries anticipate risks, manage transitions, and sustain development momentum. Its success, however, hinges on strong political support and adequate, predictable resourcing from development partners.
Graduation as a Catalyst for Transformation Graduation should not be the end of the story—it should be the beginning of a new chapter of resilience and opportunity. With integrated national strategies and reinvigorated global partnerships, we can turn graduation into a catalyst for inclusive, sustainable development. Let us seize this moment in Doha to reaffirm our collective commitment: no country should graduate into vulnerability. Together, we can ensure that graduation delivers on its promise—for communities, for economies, and for future generations.
Rabab Fatima is UN Under Secretary General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States
Regional leaders say the outcome of the ‘mixed bag’ climate talks once again overlooks the real and mounting threats faced by Caribbean countries.
A coastal community in the Eastern Caribbean. Small island states say their extreme climate vulnerability is still not reflected in global finance decisions made at COP30. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS
CASTRIES, St Lucia, Dec 1 2025 (IPS) – Caribbean small island states say this year’s UN climate conference has once again failed to deliver the urgency and ambition needed to tackle escalating climate devastation across the region. From slow-moving climate finance to frustrating political gridlock, leaders say COP30 did not reflect the realities that small islands are living through every day.
Jamaica is recovering from Hurricane Melissa, which left over 30 percent of the country’s GDP in losses and billions of dollars in damage. While the country has been able to respond rapidly thanks to a suite of innovative developmental finance tools, including a USD 150 million catastrophe bond, parametric insurance and a disaster savings fund, its Minister for Water, Environment and Climate Change, Matthew Samuda, warns that the vast majority of Caribbean islands do not have similar mechanisms.
Speaking at a press conference organized by Island Innovation and themed “Islands, the Climate Finance Gap, and COP30 Reflections,” Samuda said this is precisely why global negotiations must center the lived experiences of SIDS.
“I think I perhaps may be a little more disappointed than I am usually at the end of a COP because seeing what Jamaica is going through, seeing what Vietnam is going through, seeing extreme weather events pop up all around the world over the last 10 days, you would think that the urgency and the facts staring us in the face would have brought about greater ambition,” he said, adding that “unfortunately, the global geopolitical landscape didn’t allow for us to go much further.”
A Struggle Just to be Heard?
For many small islands and territories, simply participating meaningfully at COP30 was an uphill battle. The British Virgin Islands, like other Caribbean territories, had to rely on partners, including the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre for accreditation and access to the negotiations.
“We try to split up and cover as much as we can,” said Dr. Ronald Berkeley, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change. “Our reliance on partners shows how limited our reach still is.”
Berkeley said that despite the Caribbean’s visible and worsening climate impacts, it remains difficult to get major emitters to understand the region’s urgency.
“For small islands, this is real. I’m not sure a lot of the big players believe us,” he said. “Until you live through being almost blown to smithereens by a Category Five hurricane, you will never understand.”
The BVI recently established its own climate trust fund, currently funded with about US$5.5 million, to address some financing shortfalls, but Berkeley emphasized that this cannot make up for reliable, large-scale climate funding.
Barriers to Pledges
Caribbean officials are echoing the same concern—that climate finance exists on paper but rarely reaches small, vulnerable nations at the speed or scale required.
“At COP there were positive commitments, about US$1.3 trillion annually by 2035 for climate action, the tripling of adaptation finance and operationalizing the Loss and Damage Fund,” said Dr. Mohammad Rafik Nagdee, Executive Director of the Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (CCREEE).
“But the elephant in the room is the global finance gap,” he said. “Even where access exists, it’s not accessible at the speed the climate crisis demands. Processes are lengthy, requirements heavy and small governments simply don’t have the technical capacity.”
Nagdee said the region needs “greater predictability, simpler pathways and finance that is actually ready to disburse.”
Living Through it—Not Debating it
For Jamaica, which is emerging from one of the most devastating storms in its history, the mismatch between climate impacts and climate action is glaring.
“In the past four years, Jamaica has had its hottest day on record, its wettest day on record, its worst droughts, two tropical storms, a Category 4 hurricane and now what could be classified as a Category 6,” Samuda said. “That’s climate change in reality. That’s not an academic debate for us.”
Caribbean leaders widely described COP30 as a ‘mixed bag,’ with negotiations with incremental progress overshadowed by inadequate urgency.
“We cannot talk about building back better if the resources arrive slowly,” Nagdee said.
For small island states living on the frontlines of warming seas, rising temperatures and record-breaking storms, the message from COP30 is clear and becoming all-too familiar—that climate change is accelerating and the price of delay is already being paid.
This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.
These processes are all about people. We should never lose our humanity in the process. There should not be a ‘COP of the people’ pitted against a ‘COP of negotiators.’ We need to approach COP jointly as a conference of the people, by the people, and for people. —Yamide Dagnet, NRDC’s Senior Vice President, International
Yamide Dagnet, Senior Vice President, International at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 24 2025 (IPS) – As observers at the Conference of Parties closely monitored proceedings in Belém, many, such as Yamide Dagnet, approached the UN Climate Summit as an implementation COP. They are advocating for tangible signals to ignite crucial climate action before the climate crisis reaches irreversible levels.
For Dagnet, Senior Vice President International at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), it is an all hands-on deck situation where talks need to turn into action on the ground, which in turn must inform the acceleration expected from the negotiations.
“As COP focuses more on how we do things, we know the stakes will be more complex,” said Dagnet. “This is why the Paris Agreement set up improvement five-year-policy cycles, acknowledging that we might not get it right the first time, despite good intentions, and in view of possible unintended consequences and trade-offs.”
As a former negotiator now overseeing the international program at NRDC, an international nonprofit environmental organization that uses science, law, convening, and advocacy to mobilize a wide range of stakeholders to safeguard the Earth, Dagnet understands all too well how difficult the task ahead will be.
She points out that with increased geopolitical headwinds and development remaining front and center for countries around the globe, “we are not dealing just with a climate COP but a socio-economic COP.” To succeed, the multilateral process and climate action need to be designed in a way that is just, inclusive, and participatory.
Like many other observers, Dagnet believes that cooperation among nations and across regions is still moving in the right direction despite the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
“This COP was about diplomacy in action. Only one country has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement; the rest broadly remain on course. There are many issues that will make or break this conference, including the matter of scaling up finance for adaptation and for limiting loss and damage due to climate change. To manage these challenges, you need to measure, and to measure, you need to be guided by indicators, especially those that actually help us to move from just risk and vulnerability assessments to opportunity frameworks and value creation.”
But mobilization cannot be left to the government alone, she cautions.
“It requires support from multilateral and domestic financial institutions, as well as private capital investment. The private sector has for far too long seen climate finance for adaptation as an investment that brings no financial or economic returns. But the tide is changing. Insurance companies, asset managers, pension funds, commercial development, and small and medium companies realize it is an imperative to address adaptation. We need to amplify and demonstrate how there are a multitude of financial resources that could be saved through adaptation,” says Dagnet.
The need of the hour is to design investment as well as financial and insurance models that work for climate scenarios. Insurance business models are largely based on making money from what the company believes is unlikely to happen or happens rarely. Such is not the case when it comes to climate disasters, which there are going to be a lot more of.
A COP at the mouth of the Amazon and the proximity to the world’s largest tropical forest is not only symbolic but also provides the context to find new ways to value nature and attract funding to make nature and the people who depend on it, more resilient
Addressing whether the intense activism and lobbying at COP30 translated to shaping negotiation outcomes, Dagnet reminds us that the lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry have felt threatened by the Paris Agreement and are worried about the inevitable journey towards greener economies, something that challenges their business model.
Sonia Guajajara, Minister for Indigenous Peoples of Brazil attends the “Global March: The Answer is Us” during the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30). Credit: Hermes Caruzo/COP30
Indigenous-led protests in Belem have consistently called for climate action and justice, as well as fossil fuel phase-outs and a halt to deforestation. Dagnet has frequent interactions with the Indigenous People, especially women, in Brazil. This includes Puyr Tembe, the first Indigenous woman to head a state secretariat in Pará; Joenia Wapichana, current president of the National Commission for the Defense of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; Sonia Guajajara, who followed in Wapichana’s steps; and Indigenous leader Célia Xakriabá.
Dagnet stresses the importance of ensuring the protection of these environmental and human rights guardians. Add to that, she pushes for the need to amplify their stories, told in their own words with their voices. She believes that the world has a lot to learn from indigenous communities about living in harmony with nature and also about the increasing and complex threats they face that often cost them their lives.
Dagnet also highlights that climate talks and actions must be inclusive, and no one should be left behind, least of all women, local communities, and indigenous people, who want to be at the table rather than on the menu. “We need to engage with them in a meaningful way and move beyond tokenism,” she says.
NRDC has been integrating gender equity into its environmental initiatives, especially in India. Their multifaceted approach includes promoting women’s economic agency. Implemented through partnerships with organizations like Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India, NRDC fosters women’s access to clean energy in rural communities, helping them replace diesel water pumps with solar-powered ones, enabling clean cooking through biogas plants, and providing access to clean transportation. “This has helped increase their household income, improve health, save time and money, and position them as clean-energy leaders in their communities,” says Dagnet.
More recently, NRDC has identified finance as the connecting thread to various complex issues driven by climate change. At COP30, NRDC launched the Fostering Investable National Planning and Implementation (FINI) for Adaptation and Resilience collaborative in partnership with the Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center. FINI connects capital to climate solutions. It is a collaborative effort to unite 100 organizations, including governments, philanthropies, investors, civil society, and more, to develop pipelines of USD 1 trillion worth of investments by 2028 for adaptation and resilience projects that will support countries and communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
When all is said and done at COP, with the negotiations, diplomacy, lobbying, and activism, Dagnet says, “These processes are all about people. We should never lose our humanity in the process. There should not be a ‘COP of the people’ pitted against a ‘COP of negotiators.’ We need to approach COP jointly as a conference of the people, by the people, and for people.”
The Global Environment Facility’s food systems program found that its programs are highly relevant to global efforts to curb deforestation, land degradation, biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, fisheries, and commodity supply chains. Pictured here is a farmer in Kashmir’s frontier hamlet of RS Pura bordering Pakistan, farmers in this region have been affected by both climate change and conflict. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS
WASHINGTON, D.C & SRINAGAR, Nov 21 2025 (IPS) – A new independent evaluation of the Global Environment Facility’s food systems programs says they are delivering strong environmental and livelihood gains in many countries but warns that a narrow focus on farm production, weak political analysis, and shrinking coordination budgets are holding back deeper transformation.
The Evaluation of GEF Food Systems Programs, prepared by the GEF Independent Evaluation Office for the 70th GEF Council in December 2025, reviews five major programs from GEF 6 to GEF 8. Together they cover 84 projects in 32 countries, backed by about USD 822 million in GEF finance and more than USD 6 billion in co-financing.
The report finds that the programs are highly relevant to global efforts to curb deforestation, land degradation, biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, fisheries and commodity supply chains. They also respond to growing pressure on food systems as the world’s population rises and millions still lack access to healthy diets.
“Food systems are major drivers of global forest and biodiversity loss, land degradation, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” the report notes. It says GEF funding has helped countries design more integrated approaches that connect environmental goals with farming, fisheries and rural development.
Results Most Visible at Community Level
During a webinar to launch the report, Fabrizio Mario Dante Felloni, Deputy Director of the Independent Evaluation Office, said the team had used a systemic lens, looking at the whole food system rather than isolated projects. The evaluation drew on document reviews, geospatial analyses, surveys, interviews, and case studies in Ghana, Indonesia, Peru, and Tanzania.
Felloni said the programs mark a clear shift from earlier, more fragmented efforts. They try to connect ministries and sectors that often work in isolation. “Because it was a food system, looking at the different sectors involved” was central to the design, he explained during the presentation.
The evaluation confirms that GEF food systems projects address several environmental pressures at once. Most initiatives target land and soil degradation, deforestation and biodiversity loss, often through better land use planning, sustainable farming practices, and stronger governance of coastal fisheries. Many projects also seek to link environmental gains with better incomes, skills for women and youth, and improved food security.
Results are most visible at the community level. The report highlights gains in biodiversity, improved land management and reduced emissions when farmers have adopted climate-smart or ecosystem-friendly practices. Socioeconomic benefits include higher yields and incomes, new skills for women, and greater youth engagement in agriculture.
At a meso level, some projects are improving value chains through better market access, traceability and basic processing support. At the macro level, the evaluation records progress on policies and governance, including multi-stakeholder platforms, land use and marine planning, and early steps toward aligning national and local policies.
Yet the evaluation also finds clear gaps. While more than 90 percent of projects focus on the production stage, only about 40 percent look seriously at postharvest issues such as storage, processing, transport and markets. Very few tackle food loss, waste or dietary change, even though these are critical for shifting entire food systems.
“Despite having an ambition to look at the food system and value chains, there was still a production-focused type of approach,” Felloni said. Environmental drivers and biophysical issues receive strong attention in design, but only 40 percent of projects examine the political context, and around 30 percent look closely at socioeconomic drivers.
That limited attention to political economy and social dynamics restricts transformational potential, the report argues. It notes that many designs assume that coordination and platforms will naturally lead to policy alignment, without fully analyzing power relations, trade offs or vested interests.
‘Coordination Budgets Are Shrinking’
Jessica Kyle of ICF, who led parts of the evaluation, told the webinar that private sector engagement has been a “key feature” of the food systems programs. Around two-thirds of country projects include some engagement with businesses, from public private partnerships and capacity building to support for national commodity platforms. At the global level, partners such as the International Finance Corporation have mobilized significant private finance for sustainable commodities.
However, she said scaling these efforts remains difficult. Fragmented supply chains, often weak regulatory incentives for sustainability, and unclear business cases are some of the challenges. Programs have also struggled to link global work on standards and finance with activities in country projects.
On the program approach itself, Kyle said the evaluation found real added value. Stronger program governance, shared design frameworks and knowledge pathways have improved the coherence of activities and allowed influence to extend beyond individual project boundaries. The programs have generated many knowledge products, trainings and learning events and have increasingly shifted from broad global exchanges to more targeted regional and commodity-focused dialogues.
Even so, the report finds “relatively limited evidence” that countries are applying this knowledge in a systematic way. Timing is one reason. In some cases, guidance arrived before projects were ready to use it. In others, knowledge products were not tailored to local needs, or project teams were reluctant to adjust activities mid-course.
To address this, the evaluation calls for stronger “country docking” so that global coordination projects can provide support when countries actually need it and in forms they can absorb. It also urges more participatory processes to identify country demands for technical assistance and learning.
A recurring concern is that coordination budgets are shrinking, even as the scope of programs widens. Coordination funding fell from about 10 percent of total program cost in GEF 6 food systems programs to around 7 percent in GEF 8, even though the number of countries and commodities grew. The report warns that this gap risks undermining the entire programmatic promise, since meaningful integration and tailored support require time, travel and staff.
The Catalytic Capital
Speaking for the GEF Secretariat, Peter Mbanda Umunay, thematic lead for food systems and land use, welcomed the evaluation and said many of its findings were already shaping the design of GEF 8 and early thinking on GEF 9. He described it as “one of the less contentious evaluations,” noting that the Secretariat agreed with most points.
Umunay traced the evolution from the first Integrated Approach Pilots in 2015, focused on resilient food systems in sub-Saharan Africa and commodity supply chains, to the FOLUR Impact Program in GEF 7 and the Food Systems Integrated Program in GEF 8. Over time, he said, the Secretariat has tried to tighten links between global coordination platforms and country projects and to use limited GEF funds more strategically as catalytic capital.
He highlighted efforts to promote “country docking” so that information and technical support flow more clearly between global hubs and national projects. The aim is to empower coordination platforms with enough resources and authority to structure strong connections with governments.
On private finance, Umunay said the evaluation had reinforced the case for using GEF resources to unlock much larger flows. By using GEF grants to de-risk investments or support blended finance, he argued, programs can shift perceptions that agriculture and land use are too risky for private investors and bring in both large companies and small and medium enterprises.
He also accepted the criticism that programs focus too much on production and not enough on postharvest value chains. This, he said, is now being addressed in GEF 8 and in plans for GEF 9, including through work on processing, storage, school meal schemes and nutrition outcomes, which can also bring in more ministries and strengthen policy coherence.
The evaluation ends with four main recommendations. It calls on the GEF to sharpen the focus of food systems programs and consider phasing them across replenishment periods so that countries can move from readiness and pilots to larger-scale investments over longer time frames. It urges a broader focus beyond production, especially on value chain integration and demand-side measures, where this can secure environmental and social gains.
The report also recommends deeper analysis of political economy and behavior change at design and during implementation and stronger country docking to turn knowledge and global services into real changes on the ground.
Umunay said the Secretariat had already prepared a management response and would use the findings to strengthen current and future programs. He stressed that the GEF remains country-driven. Governments must see these programs as supporting their priorities, from climate plans and food security strategies to rural development.
“We have been very successful in some countries that have continuously applied this program all across,” he told participants. “We will continue to do that, and this evaluation is eye-opening for the next steps.”
Fabio Nogueira, a leader of the Menino Jesus Quilombola Afro-descendant community, stands in front of a proposed landfill, which is 500m from their homes. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 20 2025 (IPS) – Just 30 minutes from where the UN climate negotiations are unfolding in the port city of Belém, Afro-descendant communities are engaged in a fierce struggle for the full recognition and legal titling of their ancestral territories—critical as their security and livelihoods are compromised by businesses wanting to set up contaminating landfill sites and drug cartels.
A boat ride along the expansive Amazon basin takes you inside the forest. It is the largest rainforest in the world, estimated to be 5.5 to 6.9 million square kilometers and spanning eight countries.
In the forest are the Quilombos or communities founded by descendants of Africans who escaped enslavement. They have defended their rights for generations. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, they may be known by different names, but they are all Afro-descendant communities with shared histories.
Well over 130 million people in Latin America identify as Afro-descendant, descendants of those forcibly brought to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade. In Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, and Suriname, these communities collectively hold recognized management rights to nearly 10 million hectares, or nearly 24 million acres, of land.
Açaí is harvested in an Afro-descendant community near Belém, Brazil, where COP30 is underway. Açaí is part of the daily diet and is historically known as a source of subsistence. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
But the Amazon is the backdrop for the struggle for the full recognition and legal titling of their ancestral territories, as guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution of 1988.
IPS spoke to Fabio Nogueira, a leader among the Menino Jesus Quilombola community home to 28 families about their struggles and successes.
“Without titles, Quilombolas are exposed to invasion and displacement from big companies, ranchers, farmers and land grabbers.”
Alarmingly, criminal gangs target the Quilombola communities and their leaders for illegal activities.
Increased surveillance and drug seizures on direct routes from Latin America to Europe have turned the Amazon into a drug corridor. In Brazil, drug traffickers use ‘rios de cocaine,’ or cocaine rivers, jeopardizing the safety of the Quilombos along the Amazon rainforest.
Major rivers and remote areas in many Quilombola territories serve as key “cocaine corridors” for drug trafficking. The lack of state presence and land titling makes these communities soft targets.
Today, the Amazon rainforest is also the scene of a fierce struggle against landfills or sites for the disposal of waste material. He says landfills in the Amazon cause significant problems, including contaminating the soil and water with heavy metals and other toxins and releasing greenhouse gases like methane.
“We are currently 15 kilometers away from the lixão de Marituba landfill and it still pollutes our air and environment. Now they want to bring a landfill only 500 meters from our community. The landfill will be 200 hectares in size. We are saying no to landfills and have a case in court,” Nogueira said.
“The Menino Jesus quilombola community is in a legal dispute. We are resisting the proposed landfill project.”
Belém is a port city and gateway to Brazil’s lower Amazon region. A 30-minute boat ride through the expansive Amazon River takes you inside the forest. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
The project was planned without recognition of their existence or the impact it would have on them. The Public Defender’s Office of Pará has filed legal action and recommended the project’s suspension, citing that the land is public and part of the area traditionally occupied and claimed by the community for twenty years.
If the Brazilian State maintains the current pace of land regularization of quilombola territories, it will take 2,188 years to fully title the 1,802 processes currently open at the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform.
The slow pace of titling negatively affects forest preservation. Despite two studies indicating that the Quilombola play a crucial role in climate solutions, their ongoing struggle for basic recognition makes it difficult for them to secure their rights or access climate finance in formal spaces, such as COP30, according to Malungu, the coordinator of Associations of Remaining Quilombo Communities of Pará, which represents and advocates for the Quilombola communities in the state.
Two recent studies indicate that titling is a determining factor for the success of Quilombos in protecting the Amazon and titled territories maintain 91 percent of their forests, while non-titled territories preserve 76 percent.
“Alarmingly, self-declared territories that do not yet have certification (necessary for starting the titling process) had a rate of forest loss 400 percent higher than that of titled territories, highlighting the urgency of recognition to halt degradation.”
During COP30, a visit to the two Quilombos—Menino Jesus and Itaco-Miri—in the Amazon rainforest demonstrates the significance of communal land titling. It illustrates how this titling enhances the well-being of Afro-descendant peoples across the Amazon and how secure land tenure contributes to climate goals through carbon absorption, forest protection, and biodiversity preservation through traditional agriculture.
Throughout six generations, Quilombola communities stand out as caretakers and conservers of the Amazon rainforest’s biodiversity, using sustainable practices passed down through generations.
Menino Jesus and Itacoã-Miri territories and other Afro-descendant community lands ‘have high biodiversity and irrecoverable carbon and were associated with a 29 to 55 percent reduction in forest loss compared to control sites.’
Still, communities deliver better results with tenure security. Key data from Instituto Social Ambiental’s Study on Quilombo Territories in the Brazilian Amazon shows that while Quilombos face significant land tenure challenges, approximately 47 percent of mapped Quilombos lack even basic delimitation or fixing of boundaries, and over 49 percent of communities have not even passed the first step.
Along the Amazon basin, communities often live in houses facing the river. The forest is their backyard. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
Meanwhile, they remain outstanding in their conservation performance. They have preserved nearly 92 percent of mapped Quilombo territories, including forests and native vegetation. From 1985 to 2022, these territories lost only 4.7 percent of original forest cover, compared to 17 percent loss in private areas.
But political recognition has moved much more slowly than scientific recognition. Shortly before COP30, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited the Afro-descendant communities of Menino Jesus and Itacoã-Miri near Belém, Pará, as part of an agenda of preparatory meetings for the COP30 climate conference.
It has taken 30 COPs for a historic breakthrough, as COP30 has included the term ‘people of African descent’ in draft negotiating texts of the UN climate convention for the first time. This inclusion is a significant step toward formally recognizing this population in global climate policy.
The term ‘people of African descent’ has been incorporated into draft documents, including those related to the Just Transition and the Gender Action Plan. This had never happened in the history of the UN climate convention system, which has often been more technical and less focused on human rights and racial justice.
The Belém Declaration on Fighting Environmental Racism is a political commitment that was joined by 19 countries at the leaders’ summit before COP30 began. The text acknowledges the disproportionate exposure of people of African descent, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities to environmental harms and climate risks.
This declaration is an international agreement that seeks to foster a global dialogue on the intersection of racial equality, climate change, and environmental justice. The declaration recognizes the global ecological and racial justice crises as intertwined and proposes cooperative actions to overcome historical inequalities affecting access to environmental resources.
Its goals include reinforcing human rights and social justice in environmental policy, broadening the scope of equality in sustainable development, and building a more equitable future for all.
Coelho Teles from the Quilombo community told IPS that he is not aware of this recognition because they have “been sidelined. We do not know how to get involved and participate in COP30.”
Brazil identified forests and oceans as twin priorities and launched the Brazil-led Tropical Forests Forever Facility at COP30, seeking to compensate countries for preserving tropical forests, with 20 percent of funds reserved for Indigenous Peoples.
Science has shown communities keep forests standing. For the Tropical Forests Forever Facility to achieve desired results, those in Quilombo territories say their recognition and participation will need to be significantly more substantial.
If we do not have our land and healthy territory, we do not have healthy food, and without food we do not survive. Food must become a centerpiece in the global climate discourse, and it is not just about any food, but healthy food that aligns with our ancestry and local traditions and spirituality. —Juliana Kerexu Mirim Mariano, activist
Juliana Kerexu Mirim Mariano, coordinator for the Guarani Yvyrupa Commission that advocates for the rights of Guarani peoples in southern and southeastern Brazil. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 14 2025 (IPS) – A young woman at COP30 speaks about retracing her father’s footsteps. At only 16, her father and her grandfather were among the first families displaced by an unfolding climatic crisis of erratic weather and worsening climate conditions that goes on to date from their ancestral village in Sundarbans. Nearly 60 years later, she is on a mission to reclaim her ancestral lands.
The Sundarbans is the world’s largest mangrove forest, located on the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers in the Bay of Bengal, straddling the border of India and Bangladesh.
This complex ecosystem is a vital habitat for the Royal Bengal tiger and other wildlife, while also providing critical ecosystem services like storm protection and livelihoods for millions of people. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and faces threats from climate change, rising sea levels, and human activities.
She said farming activities in the Sundarbans have been severely disrupted and degraded by environmental changes, primarily increased soil and water salinity, more frequent and intense cyclones, and sea-level rise. These factors have led to a decline in crop productivity, changes in traditional farming patterns, and a shift in livelihoods towards aquaculture and migration.
But the Sundarbans do not stand alone. From across the global South, delegates are speaking about their shared tragedies of weather patterns out of joint with their farming systems.
Juliana Kerexu Mirim Mariano, the coordinator of the Guarani Yvyrupa Commission, told IPS her organization advocates “for the rights of Guarani peoples in southern and southeastern Brazil, particularly the recovery of their ancestral lands in the Atlantic Forest.
The Belém Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and Human-Centered Climate Action, launched during the COP30 Leaders Summit, places the world’s most vulnerable populations at the center of global climate policy. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
“Its mission is to organize a political struggle for land demarcation, which is vital for preserving cultural traditions and way of life. The commission works to secure land rights, and its efforts align with the preservation of the Atlantic Forest biome, as the Guarani have lived in the region for centuries and their culture is deeply connected to its biodiversity.”
“Within our territories, we do annual plantations for us to continue producing our sacred food, preserving our traditional ceremonies, which are linked to us and to spirituality. Our spirituality is directly connected to our food, to our plantations, to our land,” she explained.
“But all these are now under threat. We have seen this abrupt change and emergencies caused by climatic changes. So, for example, in our village, we have not been able to harvest food for more than three years.
“We have only managed to keep our sacred seeds because either it rains too much or it rains too little—at the time of the annual plantations, we have only managed to maintain the part of the traditional ceremonies that is spiritual.”
Njagga Touray, Party representative from the Gambia in West Africa, told IPS that “the food situation in the country, just like many others, is not very promising. Climate change leads to land degradation due to increasingly erratic rainfall, which decreases our production; we need to feed a growing population and plan for the next generation.”
Delegates say this progress has instilled a renewed sense of optimism—proving that elevating adaptation and unleashing technology within the world’s farming systems helps the global community to redefine resilience, transforming vulnerability into strength and ambition into action.
Recognizing the fundamental role of combating hunger and poverty for climate justice, a new Climate-Resilient Social Protection and Smallholder Agriculture Finance Partnership has already been launched under the COP30 Action Agenda.
This partnership supports the Plan to Accelerate Solutions (PAS) by setting clear goals to encourage action and monitor progress, which includes helping countries like Benin, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia, and the Dominican Republic create plans for social protection, support small farms, and improve access to water.
The PAS brings countries together with international partners and subnational networks to align national ambition with local action, integrate local priorities into NDCs, and institutionalize multilevel governance as a foundation for achieving the Paris Agreement’s goals.
By 2028, the plan is expected to have established a joint coordination group of climate finance donors to align portfolios in support of efforts to combat hunger and poverty. Importantly, the launch builds on the November 7, 2025 adoption of the Belém Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and Human-Centered Climate Action by 44 countries, a landmark commitment developed with the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty during the COP30 Leaders Summit held just days before the start of the UN climate conference.
Secondly, the AIM for Scale, a farmer-centered AI forecasting tool, could empower over 100 million farmers by 2028 by providing real-time insights that strengthen climate-smart decision-making, risk preparedness, and inclusive innovation across agricultural systems worldwide.
The Agricultural Innovation Showcase high-level event will serve as a media and political platform for governments and philanthropic leaders to announce a multi-billion-dollar package of support to fund agricultural innovations that help farmers in lower-income regions adapt to the impacts of climate change and build resilience. Nearly USD 2.8bn has been announced for farmer adaptation and resilience to strengthen global food systems.
International donors have also announced over USD 2.8bn for farmer adaptation and resilience to strengthen global food systems. In support of the COP30 Brazil Presidency’s call to make COP30 the COP of implementation, the commitments are aimed at increasing support for smallholder farmers in poorer regions who are bearing the brunt of worsening weather extremes. The donor funds will be invested in technologies and tools to help farmers adapt, build resilience, and strengthen local food systems that feed and employ billions of people.
“Agricultural innovation is the engine of climate resilience,” Martin van Nieuwkoop, Director of Agricultural Development, Gates Foundation.
Back to those on the frontlines of climate change, where it intersects with food systems, ancestry, and traditions, like those of Mirim Mariano—it is a race against time.
“If we do not have our land and healthy territory, we do not have healthy food, and without food we do not survive. Food must become a centerpiece in the global climate discourse, and it is not just about any food, but healthy food that aligns with our ancestry and local traditions and spirituality.”
This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.
