GOVERNANCEBRIEF MARCH 2018 HUMAN RIGHTS IN FOCUS PARTNERING WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES TO IMPROVE ENGAGEMENT IN WORLD BANK PROJECTS The World Bank is committed to ensuring the development process fully respects the dignity, economies, and cultures of Indigenous Peoples. The Indigenous Peoples Policy is a key part of the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Safeguards, however, engagement by World Bank projects and Programs could be improved based on broader knowledge of how to apply Indigenous Peoples’ rights. In support of this critical agenda, the NTF funded four grants in 2016 which aim to enhance knowledge on A member of the Tariana tribe in the Amazon region of Brazil. Photo: © Julio Pantoja / World Bank Indigenous Peoples’ human rights, particularly been developed which identify key Indigenous rights in each in World Bank operational work through sector, barriers to their realization, and specific steps to engagements in Africa, Latin America, and overcoming these barriers based on good practice experiences East Asia, and through direct engagement from Latin America. This project was designed, developed, and is being with Indigenous Peoples themselves to develop implemented jointly with a Latin American network of sectoral guidance notes for the World Bank and Indigenous organizations, “Foro Indigena Abya Yala” (FIAY), and other development partners. has been part of the World Bank’s strategic engagement and dialogue with Indigenous organizations in Latin America over Grants to the Indigenous Peoples’ Advisory function and other the past three years. It has not only strengthened FIAY as a teams at the World Bank have focused on enhancing staff regional organization and built their capacities to develop and awareness of Indigenous Peoples’ human rights and how these implement joint projects, but has also reinforced the World relate to their work. This has included a series of workshops at Bank’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples in Latin America the global and regional level on international standards related and demonstrated to clients the role the World Bank can play to Indigenous Peoples, as well as direct input on operational in promoting practical approaches to the respect and work to strengthen the consideration of Indigenous rights and implementation of human rights. the challenges they face and to encourage the adoption of a Out of four Sectoral Good Practices Notes, drafts of human rightsbased project approach. three have been developed and the fourth will be developed With the support of the NTF, the World Bank has also in Spring 2017. For each sector, a round table was organized, worked with Indigenous leaders in Latin America, human rights bringing together Indigenous Peoples delegates representing experts, government representatives, and sectoral specialists different sub-regional networks, experts on Indigenous Peoples’ to develop concrete guidance on how to operationalize individual and collective rights for the sector1, World Bank Indigenous Peoples’ rights in health, education, natural sector specialists, and Government officials. During these resources, and rural development projects. Through this project round tables, participants shared good practices and lessons Indigenous Peoples have taken a leading role in articulating learned from different parts of Latin America and jointly their rights in operational terms based on good practice. Using developed draft Good Practice Notes based on a template human rights lenses, rights holders and duty bearers have and preparatory documents prepared by the project team. been brought together to translate broader principles into Participants not only highly valued the resulting Good Practice operational guidance. Sectoral guidance notes have Notes, but have utilized the knowledge gained to enhance their GOVERNANCEBRIEF MARCH 2018 HUMAN RIGHTS IN FOCUS current projects and work, as well as pursue new initiatives examples of best practices and successful cases in other parts with other roundtable members. of the world. The work will expand the scope of the Vietnam The Good Practice notes, which articulate a comprehensive social development team’s engagement in the area of ethnic and balanced vision of how to operationalize rights in specific minorities, as well as engage them in a human rights-based sectors, will serve as a public good that can be used by World and culturally sensitive approach toward Indigenous Peoples. Bank sector and social development specialists, relevant All of the knowledge generated through these activities Government counterparts, other development agencies, will contribute to a knowledge management platform and Indigenous organizations, and Indigenous Peoples’ rights dissemination strategy. Through this platform the varied specialists. In addition, the project team, together with FIAY experiences across the World Bank and the world will and a partner university, aims to develop a training course, be consolidated and made available to World Bank teams to building on the results of the sector notesthat can be offered further guide their operational engagement with Indigenous to development agency and government staff, private sector Peoples across all sectors. specialists, Indigenous authorities, and other relevant actors to improve mutual understanding and capacity to support development in respect of Indigenous rights. “What we are expecting to do with this grant is to de-mystify human rights and demonstrate how much of the World Bank’s work is actually implementing, or with improved understanding could implement, Indigenous Peoples human rights,” said Dianna Pizarro, Senior Social Development Specialist and task team leader of the NTF grant. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, NTF-supported work has focused on Indigenous Peoples’ rights related to land tenure. It has supported a case-study to illustrate several challenges faced by Indigenous Peoples and analyze the impact of projects that implemented mitigation and Indigenous Peoples’ development activities. The action plan In 2016, the Nordic Trust Fund (NTF) continued to provide a vibrant has the overall goal to expose the very concrete issues faced venue for human rights related debates, discussions and learning by Indigenous communities in claiming their land tenure rights among World Bank staff, management and partners. Through the and to set good governance standards and promote a right- knowledge and partnership program and an internal grant system, based approach for future projects. work focused on pursuing the NTF’s objective to develop a more In Colombia, World Bank teams have worked closely with informed view of how human rights relate to the work of the World a project on Afrodescendants which aims: (i) to deepen the Bank. empirical understanding of the status, needs, and human The knowledge and partnerships program continued to support the objective of international knowledge sharing and deepened rights situation of Afrodescendants in Latin America and the relationships with key external stakeholders such as governments, Caribbean; (ii) to increase the visibility of Afrodescendants’ NTF donors, the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights special needs and rights in World Bank operations and Council, other multilateral organizations, and NGOs active in strategic documents; and (iii) to identify opportunities to human rights. It is the aim of the NTF that through these linkages strengthen Afrodescendants’ voices and agency in the regional World Bank teams will become more familiar with human rights development agenda. initiatives in their spheres of work, as well as more comfortable In East Asia the work is focusing on gathering cross- with incorporating human rights standards and principles into their country evidence on the socioeconomic conditions of day-to-day work at the World Bank. The NTF also continued to Indigenous Peoples. It is building on knowledge about the benefit from excellent collaboration with the offices of the World diversity of Indigenous Peoples in the region, which run the Bank Executive Directors for the Nordic and Baltic constituency (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) and Germany. gamut from ethnic minorities, hill tribes, nomadic herders, The grant program under which task teams across the World and minority nationalities, to local traditional communities Bank Group receive financial and technical support to explore and with ancestral attachments to natural resources. Additionally, operationalize human rights in their particular tasks. in Vietnam the work is supporting ethnic minority youths in sustainable livelihood development by promoting Indigenous For more information, please contact the NTF Secretariat: products’ value chain. This entails identifying concrete nordictrustfund@worldbank.org Internal Website: humanrights/