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Statistics and key facts about indigenous peoples
Demographic
information
- Indigenous
peoples constitute about 5% of the world’s population yet account
for about 15% of the world’s poor (IFAD)
- About
300 to 370 million people belong to the world’s indigenous
groups (World Bank – UNPFII)
- Indigenous
peoples have some 4,000 languages (IFAD)
- There
are more than 5,000 different groups of indigenous peoples
living in more than 70 countries (IFAD)
- Indigenous
peoples make up about one third of the world’s 900 million
extremely poor rural people (IFAD)
- Indigenous
peoples live in every region of the world, but about 70% of them
live in Asia (IFAD)
- About
1.2 billion people in the world today live on less than one
dollar a day (World Bank)
- Latin
America’s
50 million indigenous people make up 11% of the region’s population
(IFAD)
- During
the 1990s the indigenous poverty gap in selected countries in Latin
America grew to be wider than in previous periods (World Bank)
- Ethnic
minority groups make up less than 9% of China ’s total population
but are believed to account for about 40% of the country’s extremely
poor people (World Bank – UNDP)
- In
2001 about 90% of Australia’s indigenous population were identified
as being of Aboriginal origin, 6% were identified as being of Torres
Strait Islander origin and 4% were identified as being of both Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander origin (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
- Indigenous
peoples are not always in the minority. In Bolivia and Guatemala
indigenous peoples make up more than half the population (UNDP)
- In
Australia some 500 languages have been lost since Europeans
arrived on the continent (UNDP)
- Life
expectancy for Aboriginal men in Australia is 59 years, compared
to 77 for Australian men in general (Survival International)
- A
recent study indicated that ending the marginalization of indigenous
peoples could bring about the expansion of the national economies
of Bolivia (by 37%), Brazil (by 13%), Guatemala (by 14%) and Peru
(by 5%) (IFAD)
- In Guatemala 86.6% of indigenous
peoples are poor, and in Mexico 80.6% of them are poor (World
Bank)
Poverty
situation and access to land
- Living
conditions on Canadian Indian reserves are at the same level as
those in a country with a ranking of 78 on the UNDP Human Development
Index (CHOIKE)
- Indigenous
peoples suffer higher rates of poverty, landlessness, malnutrition
and internal displacement than other members of society, and they
have lower levels of literacy and less access to health services
(IFAD)
- The
Adivasi, or tribal peoples of India, constitute only 8% of the total
population of the country, but 40% of them are internally displaced
(IFAD)
- In
Thailand, more than 40% of indigenous girls and women who migrate
to cities work in the sex trade. The majority of females trafficked
across state borders in south-east Asia are from indigenous communities
(IFAD)
- The
Amazon River Basin is home to about 400 different indigenous
groups. While it accounts for just 7% of the world’s surface area,
it harbours more than half of the world’s biodiversity (IFAD)
- Two
centuries ago indigenous people lived in most of the earth’s ecosystems.
Today they have the legal right to use only about 6% of the planet’s
land and in many cases their rights are partial or qualified (IFAD)
Indigenous
knowledge
- More
than 100 pharmaceutical companies are currently funding projects
to study indigenous plant knowledge and specific plants used by
native healers (IFAD)
International
day
- The
International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is observed
on 9 August every year (UNPFII)
Source: IFAD
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