Secure land rights are essential to achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals, including gender equality, conflict mitigation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, poverty alleviation, economic development, food security, and the protection of our ecosystems. Land rights are particularly essential to the well-being and livelihoods of up to 2.5 billion Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, and local communities globally, who manage over 50 percent of the world’s lands yet only legally own 10 percent.
Founded in 2005, the Rights and Resources Initiative, or RRI, is a global Coalition dedicated to advancing the land and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, local communities, and women within these groups through research, advocacy, and collaboration.
RRI’s diverse Coalition is one of the largest Indigenous rights and human rights networks in the world, encompassing more than 150 organizations across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
RRI’s research on Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and community land rights is widely read and cited in the land, forestry, and environmental policy sectors, and has been covered in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New Yorker, Associated Press, BBC, Reuters, Le Monde, Voice of America, and more.
RRI is headquartered in Washington, DC and Montreal, Canada, with additional staff based in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Major funders of RRI include the Ford Foundation, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, and the UK Department for International Development.
Media Contact:
Luke Allen
Officer, Strategic Communications
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- Press Releases
Press Releases
The Rights and Resources Group’s Board of Directors has named as its newest members three global leaders in environmental, financial, and human rights advocacy: Emma Norrstad Tickner from Sweden; Emily Kinama from Kenya; and Peter “Mike” Bryan from the United States. They join Gam Shimray, an Indigenous Naga leader from Northeast India who joined in October 2023.
In the lead-up to COP28, amid a growing push to restore degraded and deforested lands as natural climate solution, a new peer-reviewed study shows better outcomes when Indigenous Peoples and local communities are in charge.
More than 300 representatives of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, governments, donors, and NGOs from 47 African countries gathered last month in Namibia to collectively develop a strategy for community-led and people-centered conservation in Africa.
More than 100 participants from 11 countries gathered in Arusha, Tanzania, this week for the 4th Conference of National Land Institutions in Africa, working to secure community land rights.