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86.
Despite its limitations, the adoption of the World Bank Operational Policy on Indigenous
Peoples (OP/BP 4.10) has been positive in that this body has supported many development
projects on indigenous lands in different parts of the world. The World Bank, together with the
other international financial institutions that have recently adopted specific policies or directives
on indigenous people, such as the International Finance Corporation, the Asian Development
Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, must ensure that their policies and directives
on indigenous people are fully respected and effectively implemented.
87.
Numerous United Nations bodies have included indigenous issues in their work agendas
and serious efforts are being made to incorporate such issues into their respective fields of
action. Coordination of such work is a key function of the Inter-Agency Support Group for the
Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, comprising 27 intergovernmental organizations. The
Special Rapporteur has observed, however, that these objectives do not always find immediate
effect in the activities of all the United Nations country teams with local responsibility for
implementing those policies. The Special Rapporteur therefore recommends that the
United Nations agencies and country teams should include indigenous rights in their agendas,
with a view to securing full implementation of the Declaration and attaining the Millennium
Development Goals, and should actively involve the indigenous peoples in the planning and
implementation of their policies at the national and international level.
III. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
88.
Since the Special Rapporteur’s mandate was established, it cannot be said that the
human rights situation of indigenous people has so far changed substantially. Progress has
been made in some areas, especially in the legislative and judicial spheres. The human
rights of indigenous people have acquired greater visibility in some countries as well as
internationally, largely thanks to the work of various United Nations bodies, which has
culminated for the time being in the Human Rights Council’s adoption of the Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In some countries it has been possible to identify good
practices leading to the consolidation of the human rights of these people, whose claims and
proposals are being expressed ever more vocally, owing to the high degree of social, and
sometimes political, mobilization.
89.
These advances, however, have encountered numerous obstacles and in some cases
also setbacks. In many spheres, there is still a lack of understanding about indigenous
rights, linked to the persistence of prejudices and discriminatory, not to say racist,
attitudes. More disturbing is the opposition displayed by various national and
international private economic interests to the full enjoyment of indigenous rights. Those
interests are centred on land ownership and the exploitation of natural resources,
especially forestry, water and subsoil resources. They often collude with the structures of
political power to impede progress with regard to indigenous people’s human rights.
90.
This the reason for the implementation gap between legislation, public institutions
and actual practice at the local level, and why indicators of social and economic well-being
of the vast majority of the indigenous population, especially women, continue to be well
below national averages. In order to address this pattern of inequality and injustice that
generates permanent human rights violations, indigenous people resort to different forms