Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Indigenous People

From: IPS News

Opinion: Don’t Leave Indigenous Peoples Behind in SDGs

By Victoria Tauli-Corpuz

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 2015 (IPS) - U.N. member states are meeting throughout the year to finalize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will set the global development agenda for the next 15 years. The goals are supposed to be universal and aspire to “leave no one behind.”

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz

But Indigenous Peoples, who are among the poorest and most marginalised people on earth, are all but invisible in the latest draft of the SDGs. As an indigenous woman and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, I am deeply concerned that almost all references to Indigenous Peoples have been deleted, as we have learned from experience that unless we are explicitly included, we are likely to be excluded.

Indigenous Peoples face systemic discrimination and exclusion in almost every country they live in. Without specific targets and indicators to measure and report on the realisation of their rights, this inequality is likely to continue in the 15-year implementation of the SDGs.

Continued Here: http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/05/opinion-dont-leave-indigenous-peoples-behind-in-sdgs/