March 21, 2022— Civil society organizations Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN and BankTrack will host a series of workshops this March for the Equator Principles Association (EPA), intended to provide educational dialogue on how financial institutions can align with the foundational elements of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

The EPA is a consortium of 128 financial institutions in 38 countries that have adopted the Equator Principles (EP), a risk management framework used for “determining, assessing and managing environmental and social risk in projects and is primarily intended to provide a minimum standard for due diligence and monitoring to support responsible risk decision-making.”

These workshops are designed to create open discussion to further progress useful knowledge exchange, enabling civil society organizations to articulate their expectations from financial institutions based on the Equator Principles. The workshops will also provide the opportunity for financial institutions to share their experiences and points of view.

The workshops will examine two primary topics. The first set of workshops will focus on climate impacts, fossil fuels and impacted communities. The second set of workshops will focus on deforestation, biodiversity and impacted communities. All workshops will highlight the importance of human and Indigenous rights protections, particularly the role of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC).

The workshops will also center the voices and experiences of frontline communities and Indigenous peoples who will provide perspectives concerning on-the-ground impacts of financing  projects in their territories. Research shared during the workshops is provided by the hosting organizations, and many partners including Divest Invest Protect and the Indigenous Human Rights Defenders and Corporate Accountability Program.

Workshop presenters include frontline women leaders, policy researchers, and global advocates. See a full speaker list below:

• Michelle Cook (Dine’/Navajo), Human rights lawyer and founder of Divest Invest Protect and Indigenous Human Rights Defenders and Corporate Accountability Program, USA

• Helena Gualinga (Kichwa), Indigenous youth social and climate activist, Ecuador

• Devi Anggraini, President of PEREMPUAN AMAN – an association of Indigenous women across Indonesia and the women’s wing of AMAN, Indonesia

• Rita Uwaka, Forest & Biodiversity Program Coordinator, Friends of the Earth Africa (FoEA), Nigeria

• Freda Huson (Chief Howihkat), Unist’ot’en – Wet’suwet’en People, Leader and spokesperson for the Unist’ot’en camps resisting the Coastal GasLink Pipeline, Canada

• Hannah Greep, Banks & Nature Campaign Lead, BankTrack, Netherlands

• Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director, Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, USA

• Katharine Lu, International Sustainable Finance Manager at Friends of the Earth, USA

• David Tong, Oil Change International

• Olivier Bois von Kursk, International Institute for Sustainable Development