Global Anti-Poverty Plan Must Include Native Peoples
Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, May 26 (IPS) - At the close of a major United Nations meeting in New York Friday, indigenous leaders urged the world's developed countries to take into account the concerns of native communities living within their borders while implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The MDGs are series of targets set by world leaders in 2000 to reduce levels of poverty, disease, illiteracy, and environmental degradation, and improve gender equality, by the year 2015.

"Indigenous people in developed countries pointed out that they have suffered significant disparities in the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights," said members of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in a draft document submitted to the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Endorsing a series of measures recommended by delegates at the two-week meeting, the forum said such disparities "tended to be masked at the international level", owing to the lack of aggregated data and the comparative high level of enjoyment of rights by the non-indigenous population.

"As a result," according to the forum, "there is insufficient recognition that there are challenges for meeting the goals in the developed countries."

For example, in Canada, which is portrayed by the U.N. Development Programme's (UNDP) annual reports as one of the best countries to live in, the reality is totally different for the indigenous people there, researchers say.

"If you are an indigenous person born in Canada, statistics show that you will likely not be living in Canada's much-touted high level of development," say Arthur Manuel and Nicole Schabus in "Indigenous People At the Margin of the Global Economy," a study published by the Chapman Law Review in the spring 2005 issue.

"Instead you would be living at a much lower level of development. This is especially true among registered Indians living on reservations in Canada, whose living conditions, on average, are below than those in developing countries."

Living conditions on Canadian Indian reserves are at the same level as a country with a ranking of 78 on the UNDP Human Development Index, the researchers found.

At the U.N. meeting, many indigenous leaders voiced their concern that developed countries treat the MDGs as a matter of foreign policy, relevant only to their international aid programmes.

The Permanent Forum also called for governments, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the U.N. Population Fund, the U.N. Development Programme and other agencies to adopt targeted policies, programmes, projects and budgets to address the "staggering prevalence" of diabetes among indigenous people and put in place "culturally appropriate" health services and treatment and prevention methods.

The forum said it fully endorsed the indigenous leaders' demand that states must recognise their right to self-determination and respect the principle of "free, prior and informed consent" with regard to development activities which take place on their lands and resources. The forum also urged member states to uphold the linguistic rights of indigenous people.

Last week, the United States, Australia and New Zealand appeared to be the only countries that rejected the forum's demand for recognition of the right to self-determination and the principle of prior informed consent. The three former powers that occupied indigenous territories in the past said such demands were "unacceptable", arguing that they were "inconsistent" with the international law.

Despite their opposition, the forum leaders said they were hopeful that the U.N. Human Rights Council and the General Assembly would adopt the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in its entirety.

"It's very important that governments respect the sovereignty of natural resources of the indigenous people," said Wilton Littlechild, a forum member from Canada, while urging the 191-member General Assembly to adopt the proposed declaration during its next session in September.

"It's important to not lose gains made by the indigenous people in the past several years," said Littlechild, who has been involved in the U.N.-led process on indigenous peoples' rights for more than 30 years. "I would be concerned if the General Assembly opened it up for amendments."

U.N. officials estimate that more than 1,200 leaders, representing some 370 million indigenous people in different parts of the world, attended the forum's meeting, which provided the platform for indigenous peoples to voice their demands and dialogue with the governments and the U.N. system about their concerns.

In their recommendations to ECOSOC, the forum leaders said they were particularly concerned about the situation of indigenous peoples in Africa and urged governments to the continent to comply with all the U.N. resolutions relevant to the indigenous people.

The indigenous leaders also called for U.N. agencies to engage with the forum to develop better strategies for care and prevention of HIV/AIDS in indigenous communities, particularly those living within the administrative boundaries of the developed countries.

At the Forum, many indigenous leaders also expressed their sense of loss and concern over the rapid disappearance of their languages as a result of educational policies derived from the non-indigenous dominant cultures.

"We have more than 50 major languages, but I am afraid only six or seven of them are going to survive in the next few years," said Littlechild about the cultural domination facing the indigenous people in Canada. "We are nothing without the language. Our language is our identity." (END/2006)