Indigenous peoples and the MDGs: inclusive and culturally sensitive solutions.

• Position: Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) summarize the development targets agreed to at international conferences and world summits during the 1990s. At the end of the last century, world leaders distilled the key goals and targets in the Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000. The Declaration reaffirms the universal values of human rights, equality, mutual respect and shared responsibility for the conditions of all peoples. It also seeks to redress globalization's hugely unequal benefits and the Governments' commitments to fulfilling their obligations by 2015.

The Millennium Declaration, signed by 147 Heads of State and Government, has provided an opportunity for a renewed focus on indigenous peoples in the international development debate. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) stated during its fourth session on 16 to 27 May 2005: "Indigenous peoples have the right to benefit from the Millennium Development Goals and from other goals and aspirations contained in the Millennium Declaration to the same extent as all others. Indigenous and tribal peoples are lagging behind other parts of the population in the achievement of the Goals in most, if not all, the countries in which they live, and indigenous and tribal women commonly face additional gender-based disadvantages and discrimination."(1).

UNPFII has devoted a great deal of attention to the MDGs. Its fourth session addressed both MDG 1 (eradicate extreme poverty and hunger) and MDG 2 (achieve universal primary education) within the context of indigenous peoples' issues, while its fifth session in 2006 was devoted to the special theme "The Millennium Development Goals and Indigenous Peoples: Redefining the Goals". In September 2007, the UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which provides, particularly in Articles 41 and 42,(2) a crucial opportunity and a call to action for Member States and the United Nations system to integrate indigenous visions of development into their work towards the achievement of the MDGs.

Indigenous peoples have historically faced social exclusion and marginalization. They are disproportionately represented among the poor and the extremely poor, their levels of access to adequate health and education services are well below national averages, and they are especially vulnerable to the consequences of environmental degradation. If the MDGs are to be met, States need to...