A/HRC/18/35/Add.5
effort, backed by significant resources and a broad range of actors from within the
Government, civil society, United Nations agencies and other development partners.
69.
This targeted action should be part of a comprehensive national campaign
focused on educating both indigenous peoples and Bantus about their rights and
obligations towards one another. Such a campaign should have as a primary aim the
sensitization of Congolese society as a whole. In practice, this will require a broad
educational and media strategy, backed by international partners, that promotes the
culture and identity of the indigenous peoples of Congo as dynamic contemporary
elements of Congolese society.
70.
Another aspect of such a campaign should be integrating, on a widespread
basis, a tolerance and anti-discrimination programme into the national curriculum of
the public school system. This would require additional educational workshops on
tolerance, cooperation and anti-discrimination for adults and other members of
society outside the educational system. The National Human Rights Commission can
play a key role in disseminating such a programme, and must be provided with
adequate financial resources to this end. United Nations agencies, in particular
UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP and others should help facilitate this campaign, providing
resources, funds and technical support to execute it. Civil society also has a role to
play by assisting in developing workshops and helping to execute the media strategy
with parallel advocacy strategies.
Development with due regard to culture and identity
71.
As acknowledged by the Government, clear steps must be taken to redress the
chronic poor living conditions of indigenous peoples and enhance development
opportunities for them. On the one hand, this will require enhanced and specifically
dedicated funding, with specific budget lines devoted to the programme objectives
outlined in the National Action Plan and the Indigenous Rights Law, as well as
building the capacity of responsible Government agencies to diligently, and in
coordinated fashion, progress towards these objectives.
72.
Additionally, development initiatives must be designed in a culturally
appropriate way, with the goal of not only advancing indigenous peoples’ social and
economic well-being, but also increasing their self-determination and ability to
maintain their distinct cultural identities, languages and connections with their
traditional lands. It is essential, as part of this process, to include indigenous peoples
themselves in the design and delivery of culturally appropriate projects, especially in
areas of poverty reduction, health and education.
73.
Poverty reduction and income-generating programmes in Congo have often
been premised on assisting and encouraging indigenous peoples to adopt sedentary,
agro-pastoral lifestyles. This approach is necessarily disruptive of indigenous peoples’
traditional hunter-gatherer subsistence way of life, and in tension with related
cultural patterns which they may aspire to continue. Any efforts to combat poverty
and develop income-generating projects in indigenous communities need to involve
indigenous peoples themselves in the development and design of culturally
appropriate projects.
74.
Inadequate cultural adaptation in the delivery of health services appears to
create a barrier to the effective enjoyment of the right to health for indigenous peoples
that goes beyond proximity to a health clinic. More needs to be done to generate
trained indigenous health-care workers, to establish specific methods of incorporating
traditional medicine in the delivery of health services, and to increase participation of
18