The International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, observed on 9 August, promotes the rights of the world’s indigenous peoples and recognizes the achievements and contributions that indigenous peoples make to advance world issues such as environmental protection.

There are more than 370 million self-identified indigenous peoples in some 70 countries. An estimated 70 per cent live in Asia and the Pacific. In Latin America alone there are more than 400 different indigenous peoples, each with a distinct language and culture. Most indigenous peoples live in developing countries and are disproportionately represented among the poor: they account for an estimated 5 per cent of the world’s population, but 15 per cent of those people living in poverty. In many countries, particularly in Latin America and Asia, rural poverty is increasingly concentrated in indigenous and tribal communities.

Yet indigenous peoples living in marginal rural areas – hills, mountains, forests, drylands, deserts, small islands and the Arctic –have a rich knowledge and understanding of ecosystem management. They maintain within their lands and territories 80 per cent of the world’s biodiversity.

“Indigenous peoples are the custodians and managers of our natural resources,” says Antonella Cordone, IFAD’s Coordinator for Indigenous and Tribal Issues. “Over the centuries they have learned to adapt to new environmental challenges and have a unique ancestral memory that can help inform the response to changing climatic conditions. This is especially important as people the world over face the ever-increasing threats posed by climate change.”

Climate change is having an enormous impact on the livelihoods of indigenous peoples, many of whom live in fragile ecosystems at serious risk from degradation and desertification. While indigenous peoples are among those least responsible for climate change, they are often the most affected, in large part because their livelihoods invariably depend on natural resources and biodiversity.

“However, they should not be considered only as victims of climate change,” says Cordone. “They are also part of the response to climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.”

“With their traditional knowledge and sustainable practices, they have protected the environment for millennia, and they will continue to so do, if policies and initiatives on climate change provide space for making their voices heard and their rights respected.” 

IFAD’s support to indigenous peoples
Since its creation in 1978, IFAD has supported many rural development programmes with indigenous peoples as major stakeholders and partners. Over the past seven years, an average of 20 per cent of the annual lending programme has supported development initiatives with indigenous peoples, mainly in Asia and Latin America.

“At IFAD, we value indigenous peoples’ knowledge, culture and practices when we design our investment projects,” says Cordone. “We have learned that the best results are achieved when programmes and projects build on indigenous peoples’ cultural diversity, when they are the co-creators and co-managers of development initiatives. By listening to and working with indigenous peoples, we have also learned that results are achieved when pro-poor research blends traditional knowledge and practices with modern scientific approaches to solve environmental problems. Indigenous peoples’ knowledge can advance scientific understanding. And blending new ways with traditional ones may be the key for indigenous peoples to improve their livelihoods.” These principles are embodied in IFAD’s Policy on Engagement with Indigenous Peoples.

IFAD also encourages the emerging opportunities for indigenous peoples in carbon sequestration and other environmental services, but will not finance climate change mitigation measures that could have a significant negative impact on their livelihoods. It will raise these critical issues in its dialogue with governments, and support the participation of indigenous peoples in defining and implementing policies related to climate change issues.

More recently, investments have been specifically targeted at increasing understanding and awareness of the knowledge and experiences of indigenous peoples in relation to environmental change. This is the aim of a grant to the PRAIA Foundation on Learning and Sharing Knowledge on Climate Change and Mitigation in the Amazon Basin.

The goal of this project is to work with indigenous peoples of the Amazonian Basin to systematically document their knowledge about climate change, which will serve as a basis for developing new proposals for development interventions. The project is creating a network of expert indigenous peoples communicators, specializing in documenting climate change and ensuring that indigenous peoples in the region have greater access to information on global climate change.

Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility
IFAD also manages the Indigenous Peoples’ Assistance Facility. The objective of the Facility is to build a direct partnership with indigenous peoples to enable them and their communities to design, approve and implement grassroots development projects based on their own perspectives.
For example, in the Solomon Islands, a microproject was implemented with the Babanakira and Kolina communities to help them respond more effectively to the impact of disasters.

The project was designed and implemented by the NGO Solomon Islands Development Trust, which recorded traditional knowledge and practices for preventing, responding to and mitigating the effects of natural disasters in order to integrate the responses into local contingency plans. The aim was to combine traditional practices with scientific and technical knowledge to develop low-cost, sustainable approaches to mitigating the associated risks.

In Bolivia, the project for Strengthening Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations to Mitigate Climate Change through Water Management aims to strengthen the capacity of indigenous peoples in water management, biodiversity conservation and climate change response strategies. The project builds on the social, cultural, economic and political understanding about water of the Aymara and Uru Murato people living in the La Paz and Oruru districts. It focuses on valuing indigenous peoples’ knowledge about water and strengthening their participation in decision-making processes and policy formulation.
In India, the Centre for Development Action is supporting tribal peoples’ communities to strengthen their capacity to cope with, adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change in order to improve their livelihoods and environments. The project builds on tribal peoples’ traditional knowledge about soil conservation techniques, drought-resistant crops and land and water management. It also supports their own initiatives to develop strategies and practices to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change.