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Strategic Intelligence for Indigenous Climate Leadership
GroundWork is a political intelligence programme supporting Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples to understand and influence international climate, biodiversity, and land-governance decision-making.
Photo: Kiara Worth
CLOSING THE GAP
Indigenous Peoples play a decisive role in protecting forests, biodiversity, and territories, yet remain structurally excluded from the global policy processes that affect them.
GroundWork exists to close that gap.
The programme translates complex international negotiations into clear, usable insights, grounded in Indigenous priorities and territorial rights.
HOW IT WORKS
GroundWork combines three complementary formats:
Podcast Series
Short, accessible episodes distilling key insights for wider reach and low-bandwidth access.
Strategic Insight Dialogues
Small, invitation-only spaces for Indigenous leaders and policy experts to identify risks, opportunities, and points of influence.
Podcast Series
Short, accessible episodes distilling key insights for wider reach and low-bandwidth access.
THE IMPACT
GroundWork focuses on global policy spaces with direct impacts on Indigenous lands and governance, including international climate and biodiversity negotiations, climate and nature finance, forest governance, extractive industries, and emerging technologies shaping environmental decision-making.
Across all areas, land and territorial rights are the core anchor.
Shaping the Path: TAFF and Deforestation Roadmaps
As international deforestation roadmaps take shape, GroundWork unpacks the intersecting negotiations and identifies where Indigenous Peoples can most effectively influence the processes that determine the future of their territories.
Fossil Fuel Phase-Out, Just Transition & Transition Minerals
The accelerating energy transition is placing unprecedented pressure on Indigenous lands — GroundWork maps the policy, corporate, and regulatory frameworks at play and identifies leverage points for Indigenous rights advocacy.
Moderator: Paula Alvarado
Date: 16 June 2026
CBD COP17 — Indigenous Priorities, Biodiversity Finance and Article 8
With CBD COP17 taking place in Armenia, GroundWork prepares participants to engage strategically in a process where Indigenous Peoples hold stronger political standing than in the UNFCCC. The briefing will unpack key negotiations around Article 8(j), biodiversity finance, climate-biodiversity synergies, and emerging market-based approaches such as biodiversity credits.
Moderator: Philippa Bayley
Date: 30 July 2026
AI and Data Sovereignty — Emerging Technologies and Indigenous Governance
As AI, satellite monitoring, and digital finance tools reshape climate and biodiversity governance, GroundWork examines the risks and opportunities for Indigenous communities — and advances rights-based principles for technology that strengthens rather than undermines territorial protection.
Moderator: Paula Alvarado
Date: 10 September 202
COP31 Briefing — Indigenous Priorities and the Path to COP32
With Turkey hosting a COP where Indigenous voices are already under political pressure, and Pacific advocates demanding recognition as governance partners rather than aid recipients, GroundWork prepares participants to engage COP31 strategically — and to map their priorities for the critical year ahead.
Moderator: Philippa Bayley
Date: 22 October 2026
Climate and Biodiversity Financing — Territorial Funds and the Evolving Finance Architecture
GroundWork identifies openings in the evolving global finance architecture — including reforms to the Green Climate Fund, GEF, and Adaptation Fund — to advance direct access for Indigenous Peoples and position territorial governance as a legitimate investment pathway.
Moderator: Paula Alvarado
Date: 3 December 2026
Oceans and Freshwater Governance
Marine and inland water systems are undergoing rapid governance change — through the High Seas Treaty, FAO fisheries negotiations, and freshwater biodiversity debates — yet Indigenous and coastal peoples, whose livelihoods and cultural identities depend on healthy oceans and rivers, remain largely invisible within them.
GroundWork is actively monitoring this space. We are seeking a funding partner to bring it into the 2026 programme.
Moderator: Paula Alvarado
Date: --
Partners and Funders
GroundWork is a collective initiative by the International Climate Politics Hub (ICPH), Seeds for Change, and TINTA, co-led by Philippa Bayley and Paula Alvarado, and funded by the Climate and Land Use Alliance.
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