IFIP GLOBAL CONFERENCE 2027

Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

Pre-Conference: April 27-28
Conference: April 28 - 30
Post-Conference: May 1st, Community Visits

CONFERENCE OVERVIEW

The 2027 IFIP Global Conference will bring together IFIP members, donors and funders, Indigenous Led Funds, Indigenous Impact Investors, bilateral agencies, Indigenous leaders, and allies. Together we will focus on pathways to address global social political shifts and move more equitable resources, more effectively, toward Indigenous-led priorities, organizations, economies, and solutions. 

IFIP is thrilled to bring our biannual conference to Darwin and Larrakia Country providing a powerful setting for this global conversation. The Northern Territory offers a place where relationships between Indigenous Peoples, Country, waters, culture, knowledge, livelihoods, and ecological systems remain deeply interconnected.

The Global Conference will focus on pathways to address global social political shifts and move more equitable resources, more effectively, toward Indigenous-led priorities, organizations, economies, and solutions. Bringing a global philanthropy and impact investing conversation into this context creates an opportunity to learn from Indigenous knowledge and practice while connecting place-based experience with broader global challenges and possibilities.

As a Global Community we will therefore ask what is required from each of us in this moment to transform how resources are structured and deployed and how philanthropy and investment can better support Indigenous Peoples to exercise self-determination, strengthen their institutions and economies and advance their own visions for thriving futures.

The Conference seeks to contribute to a meaningful shift to meet the moment in lifting the 5Rs of Indigenous Philanthropy, and activating in a powerful way “Redistribution”, while investing in strengthening the broader ecosystem of Indigenous leadership, knowledge, economies, and solutions.

ifip-global-conference-2027
Credit: IFIP Conference Artwork by Jason Lee, the Bidjpidji Artist, Larrakia Country

CONFERENCE THEME

Indigenous Futures:
Redistributing Resources for Innovation, Possibilities and Solutions.

Conference Thematic Tracks

What becomes possible when systems of capital, knowledge, power, and decision-making are shaped by Indigenous Peoples’ visions, leadership, expertise, and ways of knowing?
Click each track for more details

Track 1

Indigenous Knowledge, Governance, and Connection

Track 1:
Indigenous Knowledge, Governance, and Connection

This track will explore the knowledge systems, governance practices, and relationships that connect Indigenous Peoples with resources and lands, waters, oceans, and marine territories.

Core question: What can Indigenous knowledge, systems, and leadership teach the world about caring for Country and living systems, and what needs to change so Indigenous Peoples are resourced and recognized as leaders of these solutions?

Key areas of exploration:

  • Indigenous Peoples’ role in local to global policies impacting their communities
  • Indigenous-led conservation, stewardship, sovereignty, and guardianship
  • Biodiversity, ecological restoration, and Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas
  • Agroecology, Indigenous food systems, and food sovereignty
  • Sustainable livelihoods and community-based approaches to natural resource management
  • Financing Indigenous-led climate, conservation, and ecological solutions

Track 2

Cultivating and Sustaining Indigenous Leadership for Shared Futures

Track 2:
Cultivating and Sustaining Indigenous Leadership for Shared Futures

This track will explore the diversity, strength, and evolving nature of Indigenous leadership and the conditions that enable Indigenous Peoples across generations, communities, and contexts to shape their own futures and influence wider systems for the benefit of all.

Core question: What conditions, resources, and relationships are needed for diverse Indigenous leadership to thrive and shape the decisions, systems, and futures that affect communities and generations to come?

Key areas of exploration:

  • Strengthening Indigenous ecosystems, networks, and institutions for collective action
  • Resourcing skill building and Intergenerational leadership, mentorship, and knowledge transfer
  • Indigenous Women, Youth, Persons with Disabilities and LGBTQ+ Leadership, Movements and Intersectional Voices
  • Indigenous governance, institutions, and self-determination

Track 3

Reclaiming and mobilizing Capital for Indigenous economies

Track 3: 
Reclaiming and mobilizing Capital for Indigenous economies

This track will explore how philanthropy, impact investing, and capital can better enable Indigenous priorities, self-determined development, economies, and long-term wellbeing. It invites session proposals that consider how capital can be structured and deployed in ways that create greater opportunity, ownership, and lasting value for Indigenous Peoples.



Core question: What would it take to make philanthropy and impact investing more responsive to Indigenous priorities- and to unlock more capital for Indigenous healthy and thriving futures?

Key areas of exploration:

  • Investment models that are flexible, long-term, and innovative capital, including impact, blended, catalytic, and patient capital

  • Leveraging current financing options Indigenous economies, enterprises, and economic sovereignty

  • Rethinking risk, return, impact, ownership, and accountability

  • Financing Indigenous-led priorities and solutions, including women, youth, diverse leadership, climate, culture, and territories

  • Building equitable, long-term partnerships and applying the 5Rs values framework to impact investing and sustainable economies

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