Representatives of Indigenous Peoples Detail Challenges in Protecting Lands, Rights, as First Week of Permanent Forum Concludes
Standard measurements of well-being did not capture the distinct economic, social, and cultural aspects of indigenous peoples’ lives, speakers in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said today, as they explored the type of information needed to accurately quantify their unique development experiences and how to collect it.
The question was central to whether Governments, United Nations agencies, and others could truly understand — and incorporate — their needs into the new global development framework currently being elaborated. Closing out the first week of their fourteenth session, Forum participants weighed whether a universal set of indicators, guided by the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, could help bridge the gaps.
Opening a panel discussion on the issue, Chair Megan Davis said the Forum was interested in the United Nations Human Development Index because it took a “capabilities approach” to development, focusing on what individuals were able to do, rather than on crude, inexact measurements of income. Expanding on that premise, statisticians and development experts well-versed in indigenous experiences described some of the areas of misunderstanding and ways to better capture indigenous experiences, contributions and outcomes.
Panellist Ngiare Brown, National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organization, said indigenous well-being was an inclusive concept that encompassed physical, psychological, social and cultural aspects — both for the individual and the group. It was fluid and adaptive, changing with time and geography. While the sustainable development goals would have broad utility, simply inserting the word “indigenous” would not make them relevant.
In Australia, she said, work was under way to create cultural determinants for indigenous peoples that included: self-determination, protection from removal/relocation, connection to and custodianship of traditional lands, and the protection and promotion of traditional knowledge and intellectual property. The next step was to show how those determinants could influence policy and practice.
Along similar lines, panellist Joan Carling, Forum member from the Philippines, discussed the Indigenous Navigator initiative, which offered tools for data collection and monitoring that could guide indigenous peoples’ strategies for self-determined development, and further, hold States accountable for their human rights obligations. The data could also be used by United Nations agencies, States and others that sought to address indigenous peoples’ rights and priorities. Indicators for monitoring the Declaration’s implementation had been set up and questionnaires created to assess communities’ needs.
The Forum continued its discussion of those issues in the afternoon, with indigenous representatives detailing challenges in the protection of their lands and rights. Many decried the seizure of ancestral lands in the name of natural resource exploitation, while others described instances of discrimination — even criminalization — simply because they were fighting for their rights.
Brooklyn Rivera of the Alianza Mesoamericana de Pueblos y Bosques, speaking for the indigenous peoples in Nicaragua, said that while the country had assured people of the right to their ancestral lands, those rights in fact were not being respected. He singled out a mega-project that would destroy the last six remaining communities of the Rama people. When people resisted such treatment through peaceful protest, the Government used violence against them. If the problems were to be resolved, indigenous peoples’ rights, already acknowledged in international instruments, must be recognized in national legislation.
Lindomar Ferreira of the Articulacao dos povos indigenas do Brasil, speaking for the indigenous peoples of Brazil, reminded the Forum of a 2014 report on the worsening situation relating to indigenous land rights in his country. He said that rather than ensuring the rights guaranteed in the Constitution and in international instruments, Brazil was systematically crushing them. Agribusiness and major works, such as roads, ports and nuclear installations, were being built on indigenous lands. “The interests of those invading our lands are being protected” rather than indigenous national heritage, he said.
He said those actions were being legitimized through a proposed constitutional amendment that would have the legislature demarcate indigenous lands, rather than the executive, as stipulated by the Constitution, as well as by legislation that would favour private over public interests in building infrastructure. Further, indigenous efforts to preserve flora and fauna and biodiversity were being violated by the Government, and indigenous leaders struggling to defend rights were arbitrarily detained. He urged the Forum to send experts to Brazil to encourage an end to the delay in demarcating indigenous lands. Also, an international seminar should be held on the criminalization of indigenous peoples who were defending their land and human rights.
Brazil’s representative acknowledged that the complaints Mr. Ferreira had raised should be taken into account, but also pointed out that his country, more than any other, recognized more land as indigenous, and that Brazil had lifted 40 million people out of poverty. He also said there was a standing invitation for United Nations experts to visit Brazil and that the Government had a standing dialogue with indigenous peoples.
Other participants spoke out against the militarization of indigenous communities. Sarah Dekdeken, speaking for the Cordillera Peoples Alliance and the Asia Pacific Youth Network, said indigenous communities in Asia had long suffered the impact of militarization. Abuses ranged from civilian killings and land grabbing to economic dislocation and other forms of human rights violations — individually and collectively — which had denied indigenous peoples their right to self-determination. She detailed cases of self-determination movements being subdued militarily or of the military paving the way for extractive and other unsustainable development projects. The Forum should undertake a study on the multifaceted and holistic impacts of militarization, and consider the militarization of indigenous lands as a theme for its fifteenth session.
Andrea Carmen of the International Indian Treaty Council, turning to the discussion of indicators, noted that her organization had worked with the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) to develop, define and implement “Cultural Indicators for Food Security, Food Sovereignty and Sustainable Development”. Eleven cultural indicator areas linking human rights, cultural integrity, environment, food sovereignty and sustainable development had been developed with the input of over 5,000 indigenous persons from around the world.
She said that the indigenous peoples should be directly involved in determining indicator themes as well as specific indicators that were most important for assessing, implementing and protecting the reciprocal relationship between their human rights and culturally and rights-based sustainable development. Further, stakeholders should apply cultural indicators in assessing programmes and policies which served and impacted indigenous peoples, including respect for the right to free, prior and informed consent.
Ag Mohamed Attaye of Association ELLAY de Tombouctou also suggested that to establish culturally appropriate indicators, censuses should be conducted of indigenous populations before adoption of the post-2015 agenda.
Also speaking today were representatives of: the Association of Indigenous People of the North in the Anabar region of the Sakha Republic, Russia and Association of World Reindeer Herders; Indigenous Disability Caucus; Land Is Life; First Peoples Worldwide; and the Greater Sylhet Indigenous Peoples Forum.
The representative of Ecuador also spoke, as did the representative of the Pan American Health Organization. Members of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous issues also participated in the discussion.
The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will next meet at 10 a.m. on 27 April.
Panel: Indigenous Human Development/Human Rights Indicators
Moderated by Joan Carling, Forum member from the Philippines, the panel featured presentations by: Milorad Kovacevic, Chief Statistician of the Human Development Report Office, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); Nicolas Fasel, Coordinator of work on human rights indicators, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR); Linda Hooper, Statistician, Statistics Division, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs; and Ngiare Brown, National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organization, Australia.
Opening the panel, Forum Chair Megan Davis said the Forum was interested in the human development index because of the normative framework behind it, which used the “capabilities approach”. Typically, measuring the quality of life within nations was done with crude, inexact measurements of income. There was no measurement of equality. And it was not possible to extrapolate how health, education, race or gender informed peoples’ use of resources. However, the capabilities approach had been applied in the context of development policies, changing the way United Nations Human Development reports had been compiled and shifting the focus from per capita household income to an evaluation of capabilities.
She said the approach repudiated the more common “utilitarian ethic”, which was premised on the idea that people were motivated solely by the pursuit of happiness and attuned to State actions that could impinge on a person’s satisfaction. Liberal democracies had been inculcated with that ethic, which had led to a policy culture where decisions were made based on achieving the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The capabilities approach had been criticized for not providing insight into indigenous peoples’ lives.
Mr. KOVACEVIC said all human development reports published since 1990 covered indigenous peoples, focusing on such critical issues as poverty, injustice, vulnerability and human rights violations. Human development viewed people as “the real wealth” of nations, and referred to enlarging their choices through expanding opportunities and removing social, cultural and political barriers. Traditional economics was seen as too restrictive in what constituted human well-being; for indigenous peoples, group capabilities might be more important than individual capabilities, for example, as they influenced individual values and choices. Amartya Sen, who devised the capabilities approach, never prescribed a list of capabilities. Rather, their weighting depended on personal value judgments. The capabilities to live long lives and be well nourished and able to read, write and communicate could be considered intrinsically valuable. The link between economic growth and human development was not automatic, as social, cultural and political factors could frustrate human potential. As such, the need for disaggregated data for indigenous peoples could not be over-emphasized, he said, stressing that indigenous peoples must participate in all phases of evidence-based analysis.
Speaking via videoconference from Geneva, Mr. FASEL said indicators were essential tools for moving from standard setting to implementation. They strengthened transparency and accountability and provided a bridge between different communities, especially the policy and statistical communities. Human rights instruments formed part of the normative framework, and indicators were anchored to human rights standards. His Office published a guide on human rights indicators, of which there were three types. He described first those that captured State human rights commitments and the extent to which national laws and institutions accepted those standards. The second measured the implementation of those commitments on the ground and related to policy implementation. The third was for outcome indicators, which analysed the results for the concerned populations. International human rights mechanisms, such as treaty bodies, were requesting Governments to use such an approach in gauging the human rights situation in their countries.
Ms. HOOPER described how statistics had been used in intergovernmental negotiations for the post-2015 development agenda. The Friends of the Chair on Broader Measures of Progress (representatives of national statistical systems) was working on a proposal for an indicator framework. The Inter-Agency Expert Group had met in February to discuss the creation of an indicator framework for the post-2015 agenda. In March, the Statistical Commission had met to discuss the sustainable development goals indicators. The Inter-Agency Expert Group would meet again in June, ahead of the General Assembly’s adoption of the development agenda in September. In March 2016, the Statistical Commission would meet again to discuss the indicator framework. The main points of consensus from the Expert Group meeting in February included a call to use a smaller set of indicators for global monitoring. There was also discussion on the need to strengthen national statistical capacities for collecting and measuring data to ensure it revealed all the detail needed. On data disaggregation, there was a strong call for a human rights-based approach to be incorporated into sustainable development. “We must determine what we want to know and how to get it,” she said, noting that the sex and age of populations was the minimum level of disaggregation needed.
Ms. BROWN said that while there was no consensus on well-being, it was generally defined by positive moods and the absence of negative ones. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) looked at the quality of life, which included health, work/life balance, education, social connections and civic engagement, and material living conditions, such as income and wealth, job and housing. However, indigenous well-being required a broader scope. It was an inclusive concept that encompassed physical, psychological, social and cultural aspects, as well as the unresolved intergenerational impacts of discriminatory practices. While the sustainable development goals would have broad utility, it was not enough to simply insert the word “indigenous” to make them relevant. A conceptual framework was needed. In Australia, for example, the Government was devising cultural and social determinants for indigenous peoples that included: self-determination, protection from removal/relocation, connection to and custodianship of traditional lands, and the protection and promotion of traditional knowledge and indigenous intellectual property. The next step was to show how those determinants could influence policy and practice.
Ms. CARLING discussed a joint initiative of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact, Forest Peoples Pact, the Tebtebba Foundation and other partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It built on others’ efforts to devise indicators and assessment mechanisms, seeking to operationalize the Forum’s 2011 recommendation for the Inter-Agency Support Group, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and others to establish a framework for measuring indigenous peoples’ well-being. The initiative, called the Indigenous Navigator, monitored the Declaration, the sustainable development goals and the outcomes of the 2014 World Conference. It aimed to enhance indigenous peoples’ access to justice and development. The data would help United Nations agencies and others seeking to address indigenous peoples’ needs. The group had developed questionnaires for communities that were available online in three languages. One questionnaire was based on structural indicators, and the other on outcome-oriented indicators.
Responding to a question by Dalee Sambo Dorough, Forum member from the United States, Ms. HOOPER underscored the need for States to collaborate with indigenous peoples in the development of indicators.
To comments by Gervais Nzoa, Forum member from Cameroon, who advocated an approach of “observing, reflecting and acting”, Mr. KOVACEVIC said that “unless things are measured, no one pays attention.” Education, for example, could be measured by the number of schools, teachers, students per teacher and level of teacher education in any given country. Ms. BROWN added that the educational diversity in Australia obliged agencies and practitioners to engage in an inclusive manner to gather and analyse relevant information.
To a question by Kara-Kys Arakchaa, Forum member from the Russian Federation, on how to gather data on indigenous peoples who were not legally recognized, Ms. CARLING suggested examining the implications of that non-recognition. Regardless of legal status, data could be collected and used to show that non-recognition was leading to the violation of indigenous rights.
To a question by Oliver Loode, Forum member from Estonia, MR. KOVACEVIC said group values or “capabilities” often influenced individual ones, sometimes by restricting a person’s choices.
In the discussion that followed, indigenous speakers discussed how to improve the living conditions of indigenous communities. Some described situations of land aggression and land grabbing, which they argued should be included among indigenous indicators. Governments should implement outcomes of the World Conference, some said, and consult in good faith with indigenous peoples, respecting their free, prior and informed consent.
In that context, AIDA QUILCUE of the Continental Network of Indigenous Women of the Americas, based in Colombia, described work to reach agreement on public policies that fostered her peoples’ human development.
MARIO AGREDA of the Comision Juridica para el Autodesarrollo de los Pueblos Originarios Andinos delivered an impassioned intervention about a host of situations in which he felt Governments were not acting in the interests of their people. He cited the United States Government, which had imprisoned Leonard Peltier, a Sioux-Chippewa Indian, since 1976, the President of Argentina, who had not greeted Qom Indians who were airing their grievances, and the President of Bolivia, whose “Indianness” was only “skin deep”. There could be no political truth without historical truth, he stressed.
For their part, Government representatives described ways they were working to advance indigenous rights. KRISTINA A. SUKACHEVA, Third Secretary, Department for Humanitarian Cooperation and Human Rights of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russian Federation, said implementing human development and human rights indicators for indigenous peoples could pose problems, given the broad range of cultures and traditions. It would be difficult to determine a single standard.
Instead, she said, each State should work with indigenous peoples to develop criteria for improving their living standards. Institutions could be set up to provide certification on respect for indigenous rights. In the Russian Federation an independent ombudsmen for indigenous peoples rights monitored the implementation of federal and regional laws. Every year, they submitted reports on indigenous peoples’ situation and aspirations.