A/76/162
literacy and numeracy skills, as well as more effectively be able to acquire
fluency in other languages. Physical barriers to education, including the absence
of schools or transportation, must in particular be addressed and as a matter of
priority in the case of marginalized and vulnerable minorities and indigenous
peoples.
84. Development initiatives that discount or ignore the impact on minority and
indigenous communities can exacerbate their economic exclusion and
marginalization and lead to growing inequality, and this is particularly true of
minority and indigenous women. Especially in the case of resource-based
development initiatives affecting or involving parts of the country where
minority or indigenous communities are based, initiatives must include prior
local public consultations, impact assessment studies that are focused on those
communities and action plans on how local minority or indigenous communities
will be prioritized in employment schemes and sharing of the project revenues
and benefits in order to comply with a human-rights-based approach to
development, in particular the prohibition of discrimination in the sharing of
prosperity. The situation of and impact on minority women must always figure
prominently in all of these areas.
85. The Special Rapporteur recommends that international, regional and
national human rights institutions support the work of States to monitor and
report on discrimination and inequalities, including by collecting disaggregated
data on the most important horizontal inequalities and disparities, such as
ethnicity, religion and language, in addition to gender.
86. The Special Rapporteur reiterates the 2007 recommendations of the
Independent Expert on minority issues that international development agencies:
(a) Adopt policy guidelines on minority issues and their human rights
which specifically address the particular barriers and discrimination faced by
persons belonging to minorities, in addition to indigenous peoples;
(b) Build institutional capacity and knowledge on the situation of
minorities in respect to poverty and other human development indicators. This
should include training for staff on the rights of minorities and applying human
rights-based approaches to development;
(c)
Undertake dialogues with minorities on development priorities;
(d) Collect disaggregated data on the impact on minorities of policies,
programmes and projects;
(e) Monitor budgetary support to ensure that resource allocations are
appropriately targeting minorities or the regions in which they live;
(f) Support States in the preparation of voluntary national reviews on the
Sustainable Development Goals and all review procedures associated with these
modalities to ensure that the impact of policies on minorities is appropriately
covered;
(g) Commission further research on the impact of development and
poverty reduction strategies on minorities and ensure that country strategy
papers for development cooperation reflect the situation of minorities and are
published in minority languages;
(h)
21-09902
Establish budget lines to support work on minority issues in development.
21/22