MEANINGFUL AND EFFECTIVE PARTICIPATION IN ECONOMIC AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY‐
MAKING BEING A PRESENTATION BY DAVID TOLA WINJOBI (PH.D) NATIONAL
COORDINATOR OPEN FORUM NIGERIA AND PRINCIPAL COORDINATOR CAFSO‐WRAG FOR
DEVELOPMENT AT THE THIRD SESSION OF THE UN FORUM ON MINORITY ISSUES ON THE
14 AND 15TH DECEMBER 2010 IN GENEVA
CHALLENGES OF MINORITIES RIGHTS TO ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION
It is note‐worthy that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic,
Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992) states that persons belonging to minorities have the right
to participate effectively in cultural, religious, social, economic and public life since they are
recognized as “an integral part of the development of society as a whole”. Unfortunately, this set of
people are the most marginalized and the most discriminated against through the systemic policies
of various governments deliberately or inadvertently created to violate the rights of the minorities in
both developed and developing countries.
Specifically, discrimination and marginalization of the minorities pervade most of the developing and
developed countries that are multiethnic and multicultural in nature, including Australia, India,
Pakistan, Nigeria etc. In Africa, for example, most of the multiethnic States often regard two or three
ethnic groups as the major languages in such countries while other languages, no matter their
number, are regarded as the minority. Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, DR Congo and
Tanzania etc are noted for having many ethnic groups in Africa. For example, Nigeria has over 350
ethnic groups but only Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo are regarded as the officially recognized three major
ethnic groups (and languages) while English Language is regarded as the country’s official language.
The members of the two or three officially recognised major ethnic groups in each state often
dominate both socio‐political and economic power‐base of the state to the detriment of the
minorities to the extent that the latter are technically excluded in the decision‐making policies
affecting both the minorities and the majorities.
Similarly, the case becomes worse in a country where the minority groups are practising a “minority
religion” which tends to exclude such group from participating in some economic activities. For
example, some countries favour, say, Christianity or Islam, as the case may be as the main religion
while other religions are a withholding licence to involving their adherents in the major economic
activities of some countries. The implications for this tacit or open discrimination are myriad: some
cannot get the appropriate employment based on their faiths, some cannot venture into a business
of choice, some cannot even appropriate micro‐credit as interest on bank loan is haram, while
poverty is further entrenched in the lives of the religious minorities who are already poor and wary
of the pang of religious law concerning their potential and legitimate economic activities vis a vis the
permissibility of their religious faith.
It is important to note that there is another set of persons in the minorities all over the world whose
further categorisation or classification may interweave with those traditionally regarded as the
minorities. These are the rural poor, the poorest of the poor, the marginalized, the voiceless, and the
down trodden. In Kenya for example, about 50 percent of the people are suffering from poverty
while over 50 percent are affected in Nigeria. Most of these live in rural areas where governments’
poverty reduction strategies are ineffective because of greed and corruption. These people often
face insurmountable barriers when it comes to getting employment in government or public places
tolawinjobi58@yahoo.com
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