Two new publications aimed at helping parliamentarians to promote and protect the rights of indigenous peoples and to inform the debate on indigenous political participation have been released.
A new Handbook for Parliamentarians on Implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides practical steps MPs can take on the issue. Produced jointly by IPU, the UN’s Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Development Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the Handbook tackles issues such as legislation, oversight of government action and resource allocation on addressing social and economic conditions of indigenous peoples. MPs are also given concrete, positive examples of action taken by various countries around the world on issues affecting indigenous peoples’ rights.
Meanwhile, an IPU survey, Beyond numbers: the participation of indigenous peoples in parliament, has found there are a minimum of 979 indigenous MPs out of 44,000 MPs in the world today, 80 per cent of them men. Representation, however, is not enough, with the survey highlighting the importance of parliamentary bodies in indigenous involvement in collective decision making and of applying the principle of free, prior and informed consent before decisions are taken that affect indigenous peoples.
