Climate Commons Fund · Il Ngwesi, Laikipia, Kenya
Climate Finance is failing communities. We’re changing that.
The Climate Commons Fund combines a community-owned endowment with direct, unconditional cash transfers for the people of Il Ngwesi Conservancy in Laikipia, Kenya. It provides a direct, transparent mechanism to get climate finance to people on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and a sustainable mechanism to fund cash for conservation forever.
The problem
Communities protecting our vital ecosystems are stuck in a poverty-environment trap.
Il Ngwesi has protected 8,675 hectares of Kenyan rangeland as a community-owned conservancy for over thirty years, building on generations of caring for this landscape. Grazing is restricted so grass can regenerate, while wildlife corridors remain open, increasing human-wildlife conflict. Households bear conservation costs through lost pasture, livestock and unpaid labour supporting nature stewardship and restoration, such as removing invasive plant species. Climate change intensifies these pressures through droughts, degraded pasture and unpredictable rainfall.
Meanwhile, very little of the money raised to protect the landscape, whether through carbon revenues, tourism receipts or conservation grants, actually reaches ordinary people on the ground.
That is the poverty–environment trap: communities bear conservation costs while remaining vulnerable to poverty and climate shocks.
“We are restricted from grazing in some areas to allow the grass to regenerate, but I don’t see any direct benefit to me as an individual.”
Young herder · Ngare Sirikon zone, Il Ngwesi
Baseline survey · August 2026
What the poverty-environment trap looks like in Il Ngwesi
Every one of the 28 proof-of-concept participants was surveyed before any payments were made, to help us understand their relationship and interactions with the conservancy. Percentages are of the 27 who answered each question.
What the baseline shows. The pressure on this rangeland is not wildlife crime, it’s livelihoods. Nobody reported poaching; more than a third reported grazing where they should not. Those are the decisions of households with no financial buffer, and the community itself says money is the thing that would change this. Our pilot tests whether it does.
The ecological baseline
Functional but vulnerable. Key native species and ecological processes are present, but there are noticeable impacts from human activity and land-use change. Those pressures affect resilience, and careful management is needed to prevent further decline and support recovery. That is the room for improvement this fund is designed to pay for, and the number every future year will be measured against.
Independently measured at 300m resolution and updated annually. The index follows the framework published by UNEP-WCMC (Hill et al., 2022) and is implemented by The Landbanking Group. The same data supports reporting to NPI, TNFD, SBTN and CSRD (ESRS E4).
The mechanism
Capital goes in once. Cash comes out forever.
The Climate Commons Fund is a permanent, community-owned endowment. The principal is invested and never spent. Only returns are distributed, as an unconditional payment to every adult on Il Ngwesi’s birthright register.
Target figures:
Philanthropy
Grants and patient capital. One-off capitalisation.
Impact investors
Nature Stocks and outcomes-based finance. Grows over time.
Community revenues
Carbon, ecotourism and payments for ecosystem services. Grows over time.
Community-owned endowment
Capital is invested, never spent. Governed by the Climate Commons Committee with majority local membership.
Large lump sum of $750
One-off, unconditional, to every adult on the community register. Delivered via M-PESA.
Conservation Dividend
Annual and unconditional, paid to every adult in perpetuity from investment returns.
Conservation Bonus
Annual top-up, paid when community-wide ecological indicators improve: grassland cover, wildlife, soil health.
The numbers
One adult costs $2,000. Here is every dollar of it, and what it makes.
The $250 overhead covers all fund costs and fees, so the $1,000 of permanent capital works undiluted. Move the return to see what that produces. The base case is a 6% real return, net of all costs, which is what the fund is modelled on.
Where the money goes
Assumed real return
Paid to that adult, in perpetuity
In dividends alone
Still owned by the community
Returns are real, so every figure is in today’s money and already adjusted for inflation. The dividend is the return on the $1,000 of permanent capital only; the principal is never spent, so at any positive return the capital is still there at the end. In a loss year no dividend is payable and the capital is drawn down instead (subject to Climate Commons Committee approval), which is what the negative end of the slider shows. Full workings are available on request.
Your impact
Every $2,000 provides a permanent, annual conservation dividend for one conservancy member for life.
Move the slider to see the immediate and long-term impact of donating to this project.
Choose a commitment
Card, PayPal, standing order or bank transfer. For anything above $10,000 we will send wire instructions and a grant agreement.
4.2% of the ~3,000 adults on Il Ngwesi’s birthright register
Unconditional, delivered via M-PESA
Invested, never spent. Permanent community-owned wealth.
About $60 per adult per year at the base case. Over thirty years that is $225,000, alongside an endowment the community still owns.
The dividend is the real return on the $1,000 of permanent capital held for that adult. All fund costs and fees, including management fees, are covered by the $250 overhead, so nothing further is deducted from the return. At the base 6% net real return that is $60 per adult per year, in today’s money, in perpetuity. You can move the return assumption yourself in the section above.
Designed with the community, not for it
Over 1,000 Il Ngwesi members shaped this project before a shilling moved.
Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) was not a box-ticking exercise. Starting in June 2025, this was a twelve-month process of village meetings across the conservancy, explaining and shaping the concept, verifying members, planning a fair, randomised draw, how cash would be disbursed and how the fund is managed. This resulted in a formal constitution adopted and signed by the community with Equal Right at a launch event in August 2026.
From the launch · August 2026
In their own words.
Equal Right Executive Director Dr Patrick Brown explaining how the CCF works at the launch event in August 2026.
Conservancy Manager Paul Kimiri sharing his thoughts on the CCF model after the first cash transfers were disbursed.
Project status · September 2026
This is no longer an idea. The fund is now live.
Twelve months of co-design and FPIC, a community draw, cash sent to recipients, a signed constitution and a baseline survey are already completed. Here is exactly where the project stands and what we’re working towards in the months ahead.
- Free, prior and informed consent secured through twelve months of co-design with over 1,100 Il Ngwesi residents
- 7 day-long workshops on agroecology, financial literacy and renewable energy market linkages
- 547 residents attended and were entered into a community draw
- Community draw held at Il Ngwesi Lodge, stratified by gender and geography
- 14 recipients paid $750 each via M-PESA, with 14 matched participants in a comparison group paid $75
- Baseline survey completed with all 28 participants
- Climate Commons Committee constituted with 7 members from Il Ngwesi & Equal Right and a signed constitution
- Fund formally established as a Kenyan Trust, 90% from Equal Right and 10% from Il Ngwesi
- Fund investment and disbursement policy agreed by the Climate Commons Committee
- Ecological baseline established through the Ecological Integrity Index, mapping conservancy-wide condition
- Endline survey scheduled with all 28 participants
- Full Il Ngwesi pilot for every adult on their birthright register, roughly 3,000 people
- $6m total, of which $3m is permanent endowment capital the community keeps, forever
- Build a replicable model for Laikipia’s 20+ conservancies and beyond
Theory of change
From conditional, market-based payments to a permanent, unconditional conservation basic income.
Two problems drive everything below. Poverty and underdevelopment push people to draw down their environment, and conservation finance is not reaching them directly.
- Grant funding and permanent capital
- Equal Right and partner time
- Consultation and FPIC
- Workshops and enrolment
- Cash transfer disbursement
- Fund establishment
- Data collection methodology
- Permanent fund established and managed by the community
- Community receives lump sum transfers
- Conservation dividend distributed from returns
- Ecological and impact monitoring conducted
- Residents are paid for their role protecting the ecosystem
- Residents invest in alternative livelihoods and spend more time on conservation
- Il Ngwesi has a permanent source of conservation finance and a way to distribute it to everyone
- Poverty reduced within the conservancy
- Ecological health improves within the conservancy
Beyond Il Ngwesi
Il Ngwesi is the pilot, but we are building something much bigger.
Il Ngwesi was chosen as an ideal starting point: 30+ years of community management, a clear birthright register, a functioning board, and a landscape whose condition can be measured.
By proving the concept here, we’re building the template for Climate Commons Funds anywhere: the legal structure, the consent process, the verification and disbursement mechanisms, the payment rails, the governance constitution and the evaluation method, all of it can be applied to the next community.
Laikipia alone has more than twenty community conservancies facing the same challenges. The Climate Commons Fund model is designed for all of them, and for ecologically vulnerable regions well beyond Kenya.
Il Ngwesi · 8,675 ha
Proof of concept complete with 28 participants. Full pilot for roughly 3,000 adults costed at $6m and open for capital.
Laikipia and beyond
The same register-based structure, consent process and payment architecture, replicated with the legal and governance work already done. Scaling first across Laikipia’s 20+ conservancies, followed by other locations worldwide.
Cash for Conservation
Co-convened with Cool Earth and GiveDirectly, building the global evidence base for unconditional cash as a conservation instrument.
Made possible by
The proof of concept exists because two funders backed it early.
Proof-of-concept funder
Global Resilience Partnership
The GRP RAIN Challenge, a fund supporting early-stage agricultural innovation across Africa, financed the Il Ngwesi proof of concept.
Programme support
Conservation Finance Alliance Incubator
Equal Right was accepted into the CFA Incubator, which supports the design and structuring of new conservation finance mechanisms.
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