Celebrating International Day of the Worlds Indigenous Peoples

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is commemorated globally every 9th of August. The celebration is part of the Second International Decade for the World’s Indigenous Peoples (2005 – 2015) which was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in its 2004 session. Its Programme of Action was adopted in November 2005. This year’s celebration organized from 8 to 9 August was in partnership with the Delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines, the United Nations agencies led by the ILO, UNDP, UNIC and UNFPA, New Zealand Embassy, Canadian Embassy, NCIP, UP Asian Center, Manlilikha and Haribon Foundation.

Despite the abundance of natural resources around them, the indigenous peoples in the Philippines, like their global counterparts, are ranked among the poorest and most disadvantaged sector. They are deprived of their rights and opportunity to develop their capacity to cope with the fast-changing social, economic and political environment. Majority of its population, constituting the The ILO supports the empowerment of indigenous women and men through a dual strategy of intervention, promoting policies to protect their rights, including through The Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No.169) and supporting capacity-building initiatives through technical cooperation projects for indigenous peoples in their ancestral domains.

Despite the abundance of natural resources around them, indigenous peoples in the Philippines, like their global counterparts, are ranked among the most disadvantaged sector. Many of the 110 ethno-linguistic indigenous groups experience discrimination, degradation of resource bases and armed conflict. Indigenous peoples communities, generally located in distinct ancestral territories, have high rates of unemployment, underemployment and illiteracy. While their socio-economic, cultural and spiritual lives revolve around their ancestral domains, indigenous peoples see their ownership of land shrinking and disregarded.

The ILO works with indigenous peoples through enabling policies that engage them in exercising a full range of rights, including those delineated in the Philippine Constitution, the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) and the nation’s medium-term development plans.