Welcome to the United Nations
Addressee: World Health Organisation (WHO)
Full Text
The Forum requests the United Nations Development Group, which includes WHO, to make a report on how it is addressing the Millennium Development Goals, with particular focus on indigenous peoples. The report should identify obstacles and constraints at the state, regional, and global levels, and should make recommendations to address these obstacles. The report should be presented to the Forum at its fourth session.
Responses
WHO recognizes the importance of the collection and use of disaggregated data by ethnicity for the purpose of implementing the Millennium Development Goals. The WHO teams on health equity and human rights are jointly developing a process for data analysis to provide means for discerning health disparities across ethnic groups. The main objective is to analyse disparities in health on the basis of ethnic/indigenous affiliation. The research will determine wehter health outcomes are unequally distributed across ethnic groups.
Within WHO, the Millennium Development Goals are being taken into account both in current work and in preparing the organization's goals. In 2004 PAHO evaluated the achievements in health of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples as they relate to the Americas. The evaluation includes updating information on demographic as well as morbidity and mortality indicators, emphasizing the areas tackled by the Millennium Development Goals. The main conclusion were as follows:
There is a general lack of reliable disaggregated data, but they present a table with some disaggregated data. There is a lack of vital statistics or of service statistics disaggregated by ethnic group, gender, and age group, as well as a lack of understanding of indigenous people's sociocultural characteristics. The training of health personnel for the delivery of appropriate services considering the sociocultural characteristics of the users is limited. Although health policies address the needs of indigenous peoples in many countries of the Americas, adequate mechanisms for policy implementation still need to be developed or enforced. The present epidemiological profile of indigenous populations is associated with structural factors that determine the unmet basic needs among these peoples. Therefore, multisectoral and multidisciplinary work with the full involvement of the indigenous peoples is required to impove the health of indigenous peoples.
Final Report of UNPFII Session 3 (2004)
Area of Work
