SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, California March 9, 2021— Civil society organizations Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), BankTrack, and other partners will host a series of workshops this March for Equator Principles Financial Institutions (EPFIs), intended to provide a round table educational dialogue on how financial institutions can become better aligned with the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.  The second of three workshops will be Indigenous-led and co-organized by Indigenous Human Rights Defenders and Corporate Accountability Program, Divest Invest Protect and WECAN.

The EPFIs are a group of 116 international financial institutions 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 EPFIs based on the Equator Principles. The workshops will also provide EPFIs the opportunity to share their experiences and points of view.

Three workshops will be offered. Workshop 1, facilitated by Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), BankTrack and other partners and  will focus on banks “Meeting the Paris climate Agreement objective”. The workshop will present the Principles for Paris-Aligned Financial Institutions and its connections to what is stated in, and what is allowed under the EPs, offering a forum for discussion of these topics.

Workshop 2, “Human and Indigenous rights under the Paris Agreement”, facilitated by the Indigenous Human Rights Defenders and Corporate Accountability Program (IHRDCAP), Divest Invest Protect (DIP), and the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), will be led by Indigenous leaders and partners, and will discuss the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the operationalization of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and also what the interests, rights, and impacts are to frontline human rights and land defenders. Workshop presenters include: Patricia Gaulinga (Kichwa),  Indigenous leader from Sarayaku, Spokeswoman for Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva, Ecuador; Helena Gualinga (Kichwa-Swedish), Indigenous youth social and climate activist, Ecuador; Casey Camp-Horinek (Ponca Nation), Environmental Ambassador, Senior Project Lead/Board Member for WECAN, USA; Michelle Cook ( Dine’/Navajo), Human rights lawyer and founder of Divest Invest Protect, USA; Jessica Parfait (United Houma Nation), research associate, The Water Institute of the Gulf; and Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director, Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, USA. This workshop is conducted with the support of Global Witness, First Peoples Worldwide, and OECD Watch.

Workshop 3, “Commitments to reduce deforestation and forest degradation”, facilitated by Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), BankTrack, and other partners, will explain the links between bank financing for deforestation-risk commodities and climate change, and also center the voices and experiences of frontline communities and Indigenous peoples who will provide perspectives concerning on-the-ground impacts of deforestation.