There are many benefits to creating specially targeted health programmes for minorities. A community radio health programme in Peru has created the space to exercise the right to express oneself in one’s native language. Before Bienvenida Salud! (Welcome Health!), certain indigenous languages, such as Urarina, had never been heard on the radio in Loreto, Peru. The radio programme reads letters of complaints about rights’ violations by the State, including lack of health posts or health personnel. When these situations are exposed and denounced over the radio, people across these small and dispersed communities recognize they face similar problems and can join together to act. Letters also recount success stories (e.g. bridges that were repaired, health posts that were built, initiatives for reforestation and community control of natural resources), which promote a sense of effective agency and understandings of their health rights. By bringing rights into health MDGs’ strategies, minority groups can be empowered for wider improvements in their capacity to change their situation. Source: A.E. Yamin, “Health rights”, in M. Salomon, (ed.). Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Guide for Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, London: MRG, 2005 (p. 41-54). MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability; access to safe drinking water; and improvements in the lives of slum dwellers Minority groups are frequently vulnerable to the effects of environmental degradation, impacting negatively on their health, livelihoods, land security and poverty levels. The disproportionately high levels of poverty among minorities make them particularly vulnerable to environmental changes that can undermine their already precarious social and economic security. There is a widespread problem of “environmental racism” (e.g. Bullard and UNRISD 2004), whereby higher levels of environmental pollution and degradation are commonly found in areas where minorities reside. This may be because lower standards for environmental health and safety are enforced in minority areas or because minorities involuntarily migrate to such regions because of poverty, discrimination or displacement. The result is that they can suffer much higher levels of environmentally-related illnesses and have less safe drinking water. 44 Minorities make up a significant proportion of slum dwellers, where they have been forcibly displaced from their regions, housing and land or where they have migrated to cities in search of improved economic opportunities not available in their regions. Minorities are less able to oppose such displacement, or to seek participation in resettlement decision-making or adequate compensation. Forced displacement has also been used as a means of improving access to basic services for minorities, including drinking water, because relocation is perceived to reduce the costs of delivering such services. In fact, displacement can cause harmful shifts in cultural, social and economic life that dramatically decrease human development prospects. Physical, economic and social security of minority groups declines because, inter alia, traditional livelihoods are no longer feasible, new housing breaks structures of communal support, and minorities feel alienated in new settlement regions where they may not be welcomed nor speak the language. The new environment might be less relevant to cultural and religious practice and could erode minority identities. M A R G I N A L I S E D M I N O R I T I E S I N D E V E LO P M E N T P R O G R A M M I N g