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Addressee: Member States, UN system
Full Text
The impact of the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals on indigenous peoples should be assessed and reported in Millennium Development Goals country reports and other relevant reports by States and the United Nations system. Progressive assessment of the situation of indigenous peoples in the process of implementation of the Millennium Development Goals should be reflected in the Millennium Development Goals country reports. Guidelines for the preparation of the Millennium Development Goals reports should be refined to ensure that the coverage of the poverty situation of indigenous peoples is integrated. The Millennium Development Goals country reports should be prepared, where relevant, with the full participation of indigenous peoples.
Responses
The Government of Switzerland reports the following in its report (E/C.19/2006/4/Add.1) to the fifth session:
Switzerland supports this progressive recommendation
The UN system is working on the dissemination of the national report on the Millennium Development Goals in Ecuador. To that end, in coordination with the Council for the Development of the Nations and Peoples of Ecuador, it held a meeting with indigenous leaders, including members of Parliament, to present and report and gather their proposals for including, in a visible and specific manner, the situation of indigenous peoples in the country. To facilitate the dissemination of the Goals among the indigenous peoples, the national report on the Goals, to be issued in 2006, was translated in Quechua, and material was prepared for distribution in other native languages. UNDP and PAHO, through a special social research centre, conducted preliminary activities for the incorporation of an intercultural perspective in the provincial reports on the Goals. Please see E/C.19/2006/Add.7. The Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (SPFII) conducted a desk review of the 20 MDG country reports in 2005. Some of the conclusions included: (a) Over 80 percent of the MDG reports surveyed did not sufficiently include indigenous peoples; (b) most of the reports did not include indigenous peoples' organizations either in th ecollection of information for the report, or in the planning for future interventions designed to target marginalized groups for assistance; (c) although some countries in one degree or another mentioned indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities in relation to either specific goals or targets, they did not mention any targeted interventions specifically addressed to them, nor any efforts towards their full and effective participation. In the context of the MDGs, free, prior and informed consent should apply not only to land development intiatives, but to all development initiatives focused on improving the lives of indigenous peoples; (d) most of the reports did not refer to indigenous peoples direclty, but used different terminology, including regional or rural disparities, to express disproportionate development, when in fact these regions and/or rural settings often corresponded to indigenous lands and territories; (e) while some reports mentioned the ethnic diversity of the countries and presented indigenous peoples as marginalized and in need of targeted interventions, none of the reports disaggregated data regarding the MDGs and indigenous peoples. Some of the recommendations from the review included: In future reports, when indigenous peoples' organizations are mentioned as having been consulted it would be useful for the authors to provide examples of good practices in that regard to underline the importance of process. The effective participation of indigenous peoples in environmental programs can contribute to conservation and development. Both developed and developing countries should do more to include indigenous peoples within the frameworkof the implementation of MDG 8 on partnerships. Governments with indigenous peoples should incorporate the issues and challenges specifically faced by indigenous peoples directly into the framework of the MDG report. For more details please see the Note of the Secretariat E/C.19/2006/8
Final Report of UNPFII Session 4 (2005)
Area of Work
