In recent years, the Norwegian Embassy in Brazil has shifted its funding strategy to channel more resources directly to Indigenous peoples in the country. By 2026, one of its programs plans to provide 91% of its annual funding directly to Indigenous-led funds and organizations, rather than through NGOs or multilateral agencies, an official told Mongabay. The Norwegian Indigenous Peoples Programme (NIPP), which the embassy has managed since 1983, supports projects in Brazil that primarily focus on capacity building within Indigenous organizations, securing Indigenous rights, and promoting sustainable land management and gender rights. This program is one of two channels in Brazil that Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) uses to funnel funding to Indigenous initiatives, the other being the Amazon Fund. In 2023, $1.1 million, or 13%, of NIPP’s $8.7 million in available financing went directly to Indigenous peoples. The share has increased since then, to 20% in 2024 and an estimated 42% in 2025. By 2026, NIPP plans to more than double that share, channeling 56 million kroner ($5.5 million) directly to Indigenous-led organizations, according to Kristian Bengtson, a Swedish-Brazilian who manages of the Indigenous support program at the Norwegian Embassy. Bengtson told Mongabay by email that under the new strategy, NIPP plans to prioritize long-term projects to ensure greater transformational changes, improve project designs to generate consistent impacts, and further strengthen capacity building to make Indigenous organizations “more resilient, lasting and effective.” Reforestation worker Leonilson Silva harvests Inga fruits from a tree at Marechal Thaumaturgo, in Acre…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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