Across Latin America, thousands of local, grassroots, peasant, and Indigenous organizations continue to be excluded from major philanthropic initiatives and international funding. Underlying causes include racism, classism, the rural–urban divide, and internal and subregional colonialism, among other factors. In this webinar, Red Comunidades Rurales (member of the Alianza de Fondos del Sur), Fondo Emerger (member of the Alianza de Fondos del Sur), and Instituto Procomum (member of Rede Comuá and the Alianza Territorial) will share their experiences developing collaborative, participatory, and community-based responses to challenge systemic racism, colonialism, and discrimination in philanthropy.

We will address topics such as:

• Structural discrimination in access to international cooperation resources for local organizations, rural communities, peasant families, and Indigenous peoples;

• Alternative philanthropic experiences and practices, such as participatory grantmaking platforms, community savings groups, and alternative methodologies for grant application and evaluation;

• Resource decentralization, the valuing of community knowledge, and trust-based shared governance;

• Strengthening capacities within communities so that organizations can identify their own resources, and enhance their resilience to the barriers imposed by the international cooperation system.
  
  

Speakers

Facundo Ibarlucía – Coordinator of Information and Knowledge Management, Red Comunidades Rurales / Alianza de Fondos del Sur

Political scientist specialized in technology service management and the design, monitoring, and evaluation of socio-environmental projects. Since 2012, he has worked with Red Comunidades Rurales and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), where he served as Director of the Rural Community Project Bank and Coordinator of the Research and Knowledge Management Area. He has led learning communities and provided consulting for UNDP's Small Grants Programme (SGP). He has worked on initiatives such as Force for Good (JP Morgan), Resource Mapping (Telecom), and rural development surveys.

Laura V. Flórez – Head of Programs, Fondo Emerger / Alianza de Fondos del Sur

Laura serves as Head of Programs at Fondo Emerger. There, she supports grassroots organizations and collectives in the application process through open calls and coordinates the proposal evaluation and selection processes. She focuses on reducing gaps between communities and donors and developing tools to highlight the local resources held by the planet’s guardians. Throughout her career, Laura has focused on reducing inequalities in access to external resources and uplifting local resources in grassroots collectives and organizations, through social entrepreneurship and support for socio-environmental initiatives.

Fabrício Freitas – Instituto Procomum / Rede Comuá and Alianza Territorial

Fabrício Freitas is a non-binary Afro-Brazilian administrator, cultural producer, artist, and activist. They currently serve as Director of Resources at Instituto Procomum, a social organization based in the Baixada Santista region (São Paulo coast – Brazil) that works at the intersection of culture, citizen innovation, climate justice, solidarity economy, and care as a political and methodological axis. Fabrício also represents Instituto Procomum in Rede Comuá and the Alianza Territorial, where they help advance strategies for resource redistribution, community network strengthening, and collaborative territorial practices. They will share the experience of the Alianza Territorial, a coalition of seven Rede Comuá organizations — Casa Fluminense, FunBEA, Instituto Comunitário Baixada Maranhense, ICOM, Instituto Procomum, Redes da Maré, and Tabôa Fortalecimento Comunitário.

Moderator: Mara Tissera Luna, Content Advisor at KujaLearn

Date and Time: June 25, 2025

• Mexico City / Guatemala City – 10:00 AM

• New York, USA – 12:00 PM

• Buenos Aires / Rio de Janeiro – 1:00 PM

• London, UK – 4:00 PM

• Geneva / Madrid – 5:00 PM

• Cape Town, South Africa – 6:00 PM

• Nairobi, Kenya – 7:00 PM

• Delhi, India – 10:00 PM
  
  

Duration: 1 hour and 15 minutes. Language: Spanish, with simultaneous interpretation in English and French.

We are pleased to invite you to the 4th Session of the Pledge Learning Series, "Shaping Mutual Accountability: A Reflection on the First Full Circle of the Pledge Accountability and Learning Mechanism (PALM) as a Mutual Accountability Tool."

The Pledge for Change Learning Series provides an opportunity for strategic lesson-sharing and reflection on emerging issues within the Pledge community. Following the full first circle of collecting and analyzing accountability data, join us as we reflect on the PALM as a tool for fostering mutual accountability. This session will highlight key lessons through an interactive discussion facilitated by representatives from the Pledge Southern-led assessment and the MEAL Working Group.

Date: 25th June 2025

Time: 3 PM Nairobi/ 12 PM GMT/ 1 PM WAT/ 8 AM ET

Facilitator: Blessing Osagie

Natalie Lartey is the founder and director of ‘Wood & Water’ a social enterprise dedicated to a world where humanitarian and environmental stories inspire action towards racial justice. An innovator in her field, Natalie combines traditional communications and knowledge generation approaches, with critical race theory and lived experience perspectives. Natalie is an advisor for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) specializing in research and communications approaches that center racial justice. She is also the co-chair of the Pledge for Change Global Authentic Story Telling Panel. With a Research Masters in media and communications, and a BSc in digital publishing, Natalie brings a robust academic foundation to her interdisciplinary work.

Janet Mawiyoo has over 30-yrs experience in the global non-profit sector. Her work as a leader in building development and philanthropic institutions has stood out over the years, with a very rich experience on leadership and governance matters, organizational development, resource mobilization and asset development. She works with sector leaders, corporate foundations and other local and international development actors on impactful giving, through Galvanizing Africa Consult, (www.galvanizingafrica.com). For 17 years, Janet worked as the Executive Director of the Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF) until the end of June 2021, when she stepped down. KCDF was the first community foundation in East and Central Africa, where she provided outstanding leadership in growing a recognized indigenous foundation that has promoted community-driven development. Among her many other commitments, she currently is a member of the Pledge for Change Global Advisory Review Panel.

Alix Tiernan possesses thirty years of program-quality support experience to development and humanitarian programs with an emphasis on performance management and MEL. She has worked both in country programming and at organizational level in program implementation and management, as well as supporting monitoring of advocacy initiatives in organizational teams.She is a pioneer MEAL lead for the development of the Pledge Accountability and Learning Mechanism (PALM). Alix currently works with Christian Aid as the Global Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager and doubles as the Co-Chair for the Pledge MEAL Working Group. 

Please register for the session here. We encourage you to share this with your colleagues and partners. Thank you!