Taking part in their own development is key

Yet too often, says Elissavet Stamatopoulou, indigenous peoples are left out of important development decisions.

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“Indigenous people are left out to a large extent from development schemes and a major reason is precisely discrimination. Discrimination that has been endemic and institutionalized over decades, that is number one. But even when they are taken into account somehow they are never asked straightforward by the policy makers what they really want. So in other words they don’t participate. There is no genuine participation of indigenous people in development processes and there is no genuine participation because also their traditional mode of organization and representation are not consulted. So that is a very big problem.”

Collective and individual rights must be respected

Victoria Tauli Corpuz believes giving people control over the territories in which they live is a crucial step in the development process.

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“Number one: they really should involve us in designing these development programmes or policies or projects. I think that’s imperative in any work that you need to do. You have to ask the people themselves who are the ones who will be directly affected if that is exactly what they would like to have. And secondly, they should also be respectful of the rights, both individual and collective rights of these peoples. And that’s why I think the evolution of the so-called rights-based approach to development is important because for us it means that our rights to have control over our territories and resources, our rights to be more self determining in terms of designing how we can develop culturally, socially and economically and our rights to our knowledge and our cultures will be respected and this is all integral to a whole development model that will be appropriate and relevant for indigenous peoples.”

Globalization poses an increasing threat

Even nation states’ capacity to determine their own development policies is being reduced, says Victoria Tauli Corpuz.

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“We have always said that our rights to self determination on territories and lands are really inherent rights. These are priory rights that have been there even before nation states came into the picture. We have always been self-governing communities and we had control over our lands and now when the nation states were created then somehow you have to have that other layer which you have to deal with. But nevertheless we did work with them and we have been pushing some states to create some national laws that will respect our rights to these lands and resources. But now with globalization, it’s a totally different story, because even the nation states themselves, their capacity to determine their own development policies is very much curtailed. And as you said the free market, the rules of the global market are the ones that are given more importance than any of the wishes of the communities themselves nor of the nation states. That’s really a big problem for us.”

The Millennium Development Goals offer hope

Victoria Tauli Corpuz and Elissavet Stamatopoulou both think the MDGs can help indigenous peoples but only if they respect their specific needs.

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“The MDGS can only work for us if they are really cognisant of the particularities of indigenous peoples. For instance I was saying about poverty alleviation. If the thrust for  governments is to work for more economic growth, and economic growth means opening up your communities for more mines, making, building more settled agricultural plantations in communities of pastoralists for instance then of course you may have raised the GNP but you have caused a lot of poverty for the indigenous peoples themselves so there has to be some balance I think in terms of  how to address the issue of poverty.”

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“There is a concern that unless the MDGs look specifically at the needs and realities of indigenous peoples they might even accelerate the exploitation of their land and resources and their poverty; and they might have the opposite effect. Even let’s say if you take the MDG goal two on primary education for all by the year 2015, if we don’t take into account the linguistic needs, the need for bilingual by cultural education for indigenous children and if you take this goal very seriously you might even push an accelerated dissimilation of these peoples if you don’t take seriously into account their needs, their profound needs.”

Positive steps forward

Many Nation States have come to realize that indigenous peoples are among the most impoverished and marginalized, and are now beginning to act.

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“I think there has been a very positive trend over the last two decades in really focusing on the problems of indigenous peoples. And that’s because the states realized that these are genuinely the most impoverished, the most marginalized and that no state wants to leave behind some of its citizens. But it is still difficult for many states to do something here because indigenous peoples live in remote areas and as I have said before they have completely different social systems and different needs.”

A role for IFAD

Elissavet Stamatopoulou believes IFAD has a catalytic role to play.

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“Well we feel that IFAD already has very good principles. And that’s why we are here and working closely with IFAD to document what they have done. We think that if IFAD continues in this way and we take altogether the best lessons that IFAD has learned through its very good work and we advocate these best lessons to the rest of the UN system that can be very catalytic; that’s why we are here. We believe that IFAD can play a leadership role on that.”

Source: IFAD