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9.1. THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPmENT
The right to development is in itself an inalienable human right. The strong link between human rights
and development has igured prominently in United Nations deliberations for more than half a century,
but was made explicit in 1986 through the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development.
The
UN Declaration on the Right to Development stipulates that:
1.
The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every
human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy
economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and
fundamental freedoms can be fully realized. 2.
The human right to development also implies the full realization of the right of
peoples to self-determination, which includes, subject to the relevant provisions of both
International Covenants on Human Rights, the exercise of their inalienable right to full
sovereignty over all their natural wealth and resources.
Poverty reduction is the overarching aim of most national and international development strategies
including those supported by bi- and multilateral donors and lenders. Poverty reduction is also a
crucial concern for indigenous peoples as they are disproportionately represented among the
poor. The World Bank estimates that indigenous peoples constitute approximately 5 of the world’s
population, but 15 of those living in poverty.
1
However, indigenous peoples have often ended up being the victims of development instead of its
beneiciaries. While the construction of infrastructure, oil exploitation, logging and mining has contributed
to economic growth for certain sectors of society, the consequences for indigenous peoples have
often been devastating. Their land has been taken away, their forests have disappeared and their
rivers are left contaminated. They have thus been
1 World Bank: Implementation of Operational Directive 4.20 on Indigenous Peoples, 2003.
deprived of their means of livelihood, often with no compensation or access to alternative livelihoods.
Indigenous peoples’ poverty is a relection of their generally marginal position within national societies.
This implies that indigenous peoples are also marginalized with regards to participation in the
shaping of the development strategies and with regards to access to resources aimed at alleviating
poverty. The fundamental starting point is the understanding
that indigenous peoples are distinct peoples who have their own histories, territories, livelihood
strategies, values and beliefs and thus hold distinct notions of poverty and well-being. The preamble
of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognizes that indigenous peoples have
suffered from historic injustices as a result of, inter alia, their colonization and dispossession of their
lands, territories and resources, thus preventing them from exercising their right to development in
accordance with their own needs and interests. If indigenous peoples’ own perceptions and
aspirations are not addressed in development strategies and programmes, there is a risk that
these will either fail or even aggravate the situation by for example depriving indigenous peoples of
access to crucial resources, undermining traditional governance structures or contributing to the loss
of indigenous languages. Governments must make sure that indigenous peoples are consulted and
participate in the national development process at all levels. Without indigenous peoples, inclusive,
poverty-oriented and sustainable development is not possible.
In response to this, Convention No. 169 stipulates a rights-based approach to development, based
on the respect for indigenous peoples’ right to determine their own priorities and underlining the
importance of the concepts of consultation and participation:
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ILO Convention No. 169: Article 7
1.
The peoples concerned shall have the right to decide their own priorities for the
process of development as it affects their lives, beliefs, institutions and spiritual well-
being and the lands they occupy or otherwise use, and to exercise control, to the extent
possible, over their own economic, social and cultural development. In addition, they shall
participate in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of plans and programmes for
national and regional development which may affect them directly.
2.
The improvement of the conditions of life and work and levels of health and
education of the peoples concerned, with their participation and cooperation, shall be
a matter of priority in plans for the overall economic development of areas they inhabit.
Special projects for development of the areas in question shall also be so designed as to
promote such improvement. 3.
Governments shall ensure that, whenever appropriate, studies are carried out, in
cooperation with the peoples concerned, to assess the social, spiritual, cultural and
environmental impact on them of planned development activities. The results of these
studies shall be considered as fundamental criteria for the implementation of these
activities. In summary, the rights of indigenous in the context
of development are:
Right to control their own economic, •
social and cultural development and to develop their own institutions and initiatives.
Governments should facilitate this by providing the necessary resources.
Right to be consulted and to participate
• in all steps of relevant plans and programmes
for development at the local, national and regional level. The traditions, cultural values
and needs of indigenous peoples should be taken into account in the formulation of
policies, programmes and projects, not only when it comes to local projects at the village
level, but also when formulating the overall development policies of a country.
Right to impact assessment studies:
• Before any development activities are
undertaken, studies should be undertaken to assess their potential social, cultural, spiritual
and environmental impacts of such activities. Right to beneits:
• All developmental projects
and programmes should better the socio- economic situation of indigenous and tribal
peoples. They should not be harmful to their well-being.
Right to lands, territories and resources:
• The rights of indigenous peoples to
ownership, possession and use of their lands, territories and resources need to be
recognized and legally protected. This is a fundamental criterion for them being able to
develop their societies in accordance with their own needs and interests.
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The
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has similar provisions:
Article 23 Indigenous peoples have the right to
determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to
development. In particular, indigenous peoples have the right to be actively involved
in developing and determining health, housing and other economic and social programmes
affecting them and, as far as possible, to administer such programmes through their
own institutions.
Indigenous peoples on the international development agenda
Both governments and international development agencies have responsibilities for including
indigenous peoples in development processes. Within the last 15-20 years, agencies such as the
World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme, the European
Commission and a number of bilateral donors for example Denmark, Norway and Spain have
adopted policies for the inclusion of indigenous peoples in development programmes. These policies
and strategies relect good intentions and increasing understanding of indigenous peoples’ rights, and
they have helped placing indigenous peoples on the international development agenda.
Nevertheless, there are still challenges with regards to the implementation of these development
strategies. Often, there are no permanent mechanisms for securing the participation
of indigenous peoples, there are no speciic statistics or data available on the situation of
indigenous peoples and he staff of government and development institutions has little knowledge
of indigenous peoples’ rights, needs and priorities. For indigenous organisations, it remains a challenge
to push for further participation in development processes, particularly as this becomes more
centralized at the national level through the Aid Effectiveness Agenda.
Indigenous peoples rights in the Aid Effectiveness framework:
In 2005, more than 100 countries and agencies adopted the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
The Paris Declaration is organised around ive key principles for international development cooperation:
ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results, and mutual accountability. These principles
will contribute to reducing the transaction costs as well as the fragmentation and lack of effectiveness
and sustainability of development efforts. However, extensive research by the ILO also indicates that
the approach carries a number of inherent risks for further exclusion of indigenous peoples if speciic
safeguards are not developed. In summary, the risks related to the ive main principles are:
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PARTICULAR RISkS fACED By INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN RELATION TO THE PRINCIPLES Of THE PARIS DECLARATION:
Principles Some general implications
Speciic risks related to indigenous peoples
Ownership: Developing countries exercise strong
and effective leadership over their development
policies and plans. Development becomes more State-centred, although
civil society should also play a role. The quality of policies and plans will depend on the governance
including corruption and capacity situation in the given country.
The use of donor conditionalities as an instrument for reform is challenged. Instead, donors can focus on
policy dialogue in support of changes in the partner countries.
In line with the country-driven approach, donors should delegate authority to staff at the country-level.
Many indigenous peoples, particularly in Africa and Asia, have only weak participation in government
structures and national decision-making process and therefore risk not being taken into account in policies
and plans. Donors may hesitate to engage in policy dialogue on
indigenous peoples’ issues. Most development agencies face dificulties in
ensuring the capacity to address indigenous peoples’ issues in their decentralised structures.
Alignment: Donors base their support on
developing countries’ own policies, strategies
and systems. Donors will no longer deine individual country
stategies but use the countries’ own planning, budget and monitoring frameworks, including arrangements
and procedures for public inancial management. Donors should help address capacity weaknesses of
partner countries’ institutions. Lack of participation by indigenous peoples in
decision-making often implies that their needs and priorities are not relected in national policies,
strategies and programmes and they do not beneit from poverty reduction efforts.
If the partner country is reluctant, donors may not ind ways to comply with their own institutional policies on
supporting indigenous peoples.
Harmonisation: Donors coordinate their activities
and minimise the cost of delivering aid.
Donors will establish common arrangements at the country-level for planning, funding, disbursement,
monitoring, evaluating and reporting and sharing of information.
Instead of individual interventions, donor will aim at providing budget support or support to Sector-Wide
Approaches SWAps. The lack of an overall strategy on support
to indigenous peoples in the context of the commitments stipulated by the Rome and Paris
Declarations may eventually undermine the value of individual donor policies
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on support to indigenous peoples.
Managing for results: Developing countries
and donors orient their activities to achieve the
desired results, using information to improve
decision-making. National policies should be translated into prioritised
results-oriented operational programmes, relected in Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks MTEF
and annual budgets. This requires strengthening the linkages between planning and budgeting.
Donors should rely on partner countries’ statistical, monitoring and evaluation systems
Most indigenous peoples do not have the institutional capacity or political leverage to ensure that their
needs and priorities are relected in MTEFs or budgets.
In most countries, adequate data on indigenous peoples are not available and national statistical
bureaux do not have the capacity to provide disaggregated data.
Mutual Accountability: Donors and developing
countries are accountable to each
other for progress in managing aid better
and in achieving development results.
It is acknowledged that the successful implementation of the Paris Declaration requires
continued high-level political support, peer pressure, and coordinated action at global, regional and
country levels. Compliance in meeting the commitments will be
publicly monitored against 12 indicators of aid effectiveness, were developed as a way of tracking
and encouraging progress against the broader set of partnership commitments.
Both donors and developing countries should increase their accountability towards citizens and
parliament. The agenda set by the Rome and Paris Declarations
focuses on the effectiveness rather than the quality and relevance of aid. Consequently, none of the
12 monitoring indicators is related to governance, human rights, participation, quality or inclusiveness
of development. In other words, the reformed aid architecture in itself provides no safeguards to ensure
that “effectiveness” does not jeopardise the rights- based approach.
In many countries, marginalisation with regards to access to education and information excludes
indigenous peoples from participating in monitoring and holding governments accountable.
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9.2. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: DEVELOPmENT
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