AIPP’s briefing paper for HLPF 2019

AIPP has a vision to ensure that Indigenous peoples in Asia are fully exercising their rights, maintaining their distinct cultures and identities, living with dignity, and enhancing their sustainable management systems on lands, territories and resources (for their own future and development) in an environment of peace, justice and equality. AIPP and its member-organizations and networks have been engaged in the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Four years into the implementation of the SDGs, there is seen a widening inequalities in wealth, power and resources between the rich and the poor and on ethnic lines and between countries. For indigenous peoples, some of the agenda, such as clean energy projects, pose serious risk because often these projects are implemented on the lands and territories of indigenous peoples. It is, therefore, very important that the implementation of the 2030 Agenda takes place in the spirit of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This means that indigenous peoples’ self-determined development is respected and promoted. Land for indigenous peoples is the only basis for the continuity of their identity and for their holistic development. Hence, this aspect needs to be radically considered and respected to ensure that indigenous peoples are not left behind in the vision 2030 Agenda.

In this context and in line with the theme of the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), AIPP gathered perspectives of the indigenous peoples in Asia on the 2019 HLPF theme “Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality.” The following represents the outcome of the responses from indigenous organizations and leaders in Asia: Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines and Malaysia.