E/CN.4/2004/80/Add.3 page 3 The Government has made significant efforts in the economic and social field in the last 13 years, but there is a pent-up demand for social services by native communities. While many indigenous people have benefited, like others, from the sustained economic growth of recent years, their standard of living is still well below the national average and that of non-indigenous Chileans. Despite falling poverty levels, profound economic inequalities affect indigenous people more than other Chileans. In the field of health, for example, attention has been drawn to the systematic discrimination against indigenous people in access to medical services and in the quality of these services. Their communities’ traditional medicine has been devalued and ignored, if not banned altogether. The few attempts made to promote intercultural medicine in some hospitals in indigenous areas have produced promising results but the programme is still in its infancy. Despite the efforts made in the area of bilingual intercultural education, the majority of indigenous communities are not yet benefiting from this programme, and the education system has not yet fully met the demand from indigenous people for the protection, preservation and promotion of their traditional culture. Calls for the preservation of their cultural identity were heard in all the regions visited. The Atacameño and Quechua peoples in the north, for example, complain about the loss of their language as a result of the “Chileanization” to which they were subjected after the War of the Pacific. The Rapa Nui people sees its identity threatened by the rise in immigration to their island and their traditional authorities’ inability to do anything about the implications of the inflow. On the basis of these conclusions, the Special Rapporteur makes the following recommendations, among others: the process of constitutional reform in relation to indigenous matters should be expedited; ILO Convention No. 169 should be ratified promptly; any sectoral legislation in conflict with the Indigenous Peoples Act should be revised; a programme to cut poverty in indigenous communities should be set up, with a realistic and clearly defined agenda; and the necessary steps should be taken to set up a national human rights institution. It is also recommended that urgent attention should be paid to the prevention and resolution of conflicts over land tenure and use; that the Land Fund should be made more flexible and expanded; that access by indigenous communities to water and maritime resources should be guaranteed; that the necessary measures should be taken to avoid criminalizing legitimate protest activities or social demands; and that high-quality, bilingual legal assistance should be provided.