A/HRC/41/22
I. Introduction
1.
As mandated in its resolution 18/8, the Human Rights Council held its annual halfday panel discussion on the rights of indigenous peoples on 19 September 2018. Pursuant
to Council resolution 36/14, the discussion focused on the means of participation for and
the inclusion of indigenous peoples in the development and implementation of strategies
and projects in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and related
Goals. The present report is submitted pursuant to resolution 36/14.
2.
The panel discussion was aimed at examining the links between the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development; identifying good practices and challenges in the participation and inclusion
of indigenous peoples in the strategies and projects for the implementation of the
Sustainable Development Goals at the international, regional and national levels; and
proposing measures to ensure their participation and inclusion in the development,
implementation and monitoring of strategies and policies for the Sustainable Development
Goals.
3.
The panel was moderated by Erika Yamada, Chair-Rapporteur of the Expert
Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The panellists were Joan Carling, CoConvenor of the indigenous peoples major group, Q’’apaj Conde, Co-Chair of the Global
Indigenous Youth Caucus and youth focal point of the indigenous peoples major group, and
Maria Luisa Silva, Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Office in Geneva.
4.
The panel discussion was accessible to persons with disabilities and was webcast
and recorded.1
II. Opening of the panel discussion
5.
The Vice-President of the Human Rights Council opened the panel discussion.
6.
The United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that the
right to development was a promise of global effort to lift people out of poverty,
persecution and powerlessness; a global promise to fight inequality among people; and a
global commitment to prosperity and sustainability for our planet as a place for coexistence.
The Sustainable Development Goals were an acknowledgment that development without
people as its core beneficiaries was not development. She highlighted how indigenous
peoples had gone through different struggles to defend their rights, with rapacious
developers and misanthropic conservation efforts eating away at their dignity and rights,
their traditional ways of life, practices and subsistence, and eroding common human
heritage. Moreover, indigenous peoples were often the last to be heard, the last to be
included, the last to be consulted or to be compensated. Even in the context of development
efforts, their traditional activities might be prohibited; they might suffer human rights
violations, impunity, arbitrary detention, disappearances, violence or assassination.
7.
The Deputy High Commissioner stressed that indigenous peoples were the living
example of the world’s most disadvantaged, most marginalized and most left behind
peoples. The 2030 Agenda would not be fulfilled unless the international community
addressed fully the rights of indigenous peoples through the three following dimensions:
measuring more, voicing up and protection.
8.
Firstly, there were too few data on the situation of indigenous peoples to be
confident that reported progress was also elevating their social, economic and political
status. There was a need for greater efforts by States to quantify those challenges and
1
2
See http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/human-rights-treaty-bodies/chairpersons%E2%80%99meeting/watch/panel-discussion-on-inclusion-of-indigenous-people-in-2030-agenda-20th-meeting39th-regular-session-human-rights-council-/5836881631001/?term=&sort=popular&page=46.
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents