Minority and Indigenous Trends 2023 – Focus on water


Book Description

The past year saw some of the worst cyclones recorded in the Pacific, some of the costliest and worst ever recorded floods in Australia, Pakistan and across the African continent, coupled with major droughts affecting parts of Central, East and Southern Africa, the Americas, Central Asia, Europe and the Middle East, prompting many experts to declare that the planet’s water cycle has been severely disrupted due to human activity. For members of minorities, indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups, the water crisis is often an existential threat affecting numerous rights such as to life, health, self-governance, sanitation and culture. Water justice cannot be attained unless the communities that protect water systems from the threats of extractivism, overuse and pollution are prioritized in the international arena. Community-led solutions, drawing on traditional knowledge systems, are the key to solving the water crisis. This year’s Minority and Indigenous Trends report brings together three thematic chapters and over thirty case studies written by members of communities on the frontline of the water crisis, as well as leading water activists, researchers and policymakers. These first-hand accounts cover a range of issues, from conflict in water-stressed parts of the world to cultural forms of water conservancy and peaceful governance. The ways in which water issues affect the lives of minority and indigenous women, children and people with disabilities, to mention a few intersectional aspects of the water crisis, are highlighted in this volume. Resolving the difficulties they face is an inextricable aspect of planetary water justice.







Minority and Indigenous Trends 2022: Focus on Work


Book Description

Work is central to a whole host of other rights, providing the basis for a safe, healthy and dignified existence. For members of minorities, indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups such as migrants, however, it is all too often an arena of discrimination, abuse and exploitation. From poor pay and dangerous working conditions to a lack of basic labour protections and barriers to promotion, the challenges they face are wide ranging and often entangled in other areas of inequality, such as access to education. This volume brings together thematic chapters and case studies that explore different dimensions of work-related exclusion, from the legacy of colonialism in today’s economy to the persistence of slavery and caste-based discrimination. While abuse and exploitation are often rooted in specific local histories and social contexts, the increasingly interlinked nature of globalization has meant that companies, governments and consumers are now complicit in forced labour and other rights violations taking place elsewhere. A truly fair and inclusive labour market would deliver a wide range of economic and societal benefits, creating opportunities for marginalized workers to participate fully in the formal economy with the same rights, protections and support as those enjoyed by others, guaranteed by international law. Beyond this, however, it has the potential to deliver lasting change to the situation of minorities, indigenous peoples and migrants worldwide, ensuring they receive a proper share of any economic gains in their countries and can participate fully in public life.




Minority and Indigenous Trends 2019 - Focus on climate justice


Book Description

Climate change poses a profound environmental challenge that will leave no country or community untouched. Its social impact, if unaddressed, will reinforce inequalities, deepen poverty and leave the world’s most marginalized populations in greater insecurity. Minorities and indigenous peoples are already living with its consequences, from rising sea levels and higher temperatures to droughts and desertification. The discrimination and exclusion they face in many countries leave them disproportionately exposed to these negative effects. This volume outlines some of the ways that climate change and other environmental pressures are affecting minority and indigenous communities across the world, in some instances placing their entire way of life under threat. Spanning a selection of regional case studies and three thematic chapters, it highlights how the vulnerability of minorities, indigenous peoples and other excluded groups is a product of a wider backdrop of discrimination, encompassing land, housing, culture, livelihoods and migration. The surest means of strengthening their resilience, then, is through protection of their fundamental rights and ensuring their right to participate meaningfully in designing solutions to these challenges. Such an approach could transform communities from victims of climate change impacts to leaders of adaptation – a situation that would not only support the development of a more equitable global society, but also enhance the ability of humanity as a whole to respond to the current crisis.




Poverty and Prejudice


Book Description

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Freedom of religion and belief is crucial to any sustainable development process, yet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) pay little attention to religious inequalities. This book offers a comprehensive overview of how efforts to achieve SDGs can be enhanced by paying greater attention to freedom of religion and belief. In particular, it illustrates how poverty is often a direct result of religious prejudice and how religious identity can shape a person's job prospects, their children's education and the quality of public services they receive. Drawing on evidence from Asia, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, the book foregrounds the lived experiences of marginalized communities as well as researchers and action organizations.




Rebuilding Communities After Displacement


Book Description

This book presents a collection of double-blind peer reviewed papers under the scope of sustainable and resilient approaches for rebuilding displaced and host communities. Forced displacement is a major development challenge, not only a humanitarian concern. A surge in violent conflict, as well as increasing levels of disaster risk and environmental degradation driven by climate change, has forced people to leave or flee their homes – both internally displaced as well as refugees. The rate of forced displacement befalling in different countries all over the world today is phenomenal, with an increasingly higher rate of the population being affected on daily basis than ever. These displacement situations are becoming increasingly protracted, many lasting over 5 years. Therefore, there is a need to develop more sustainable and resilient approaches to rebuild these displaced communities ensuring the long-term satisfaction of communities and enhancing the social cohesion between the displaced and host communities. Accordingly, chapters are arranged around five main themes of rebuilding communities after displacement. Response management for displaced communities The Built environment in resettlement planning Governance of displacement Socio-Economic interventions for sustainable resettlement




Promoting and Protecting Minority Rights


Book Description

"The present guide offers information related to norms and mechanisms developed to protect the rights of persons belonging to national, ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities. It includes detailed information about procedures and forums in which minority issues may be raised to minorities and by also covering selected specialized agencies and regional mechanisms, the present Guide complements information contained in Working with the United Nations Human Rights Programme: A Handbook for Civil Society"--Introduction.




Communities in Action


Book Description

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.




The Right to Development: Obligations of States and the Rights of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples


Book Description

The United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development in 1986. The Declaration recognizes that development is an inalienable human right, and describes development as a comprehensive process leading to the well-being of all people. All states are called upon to cooperate internationally and work nationally to ensure that this comprehensive process in which all human rights can be realized is undertaken without discrimination, and that all people may participate fully and equally in this process. This paper provides an elaboration of the content of the right to development by drawing on international law. It addresses the obligations of states, particularly with regard to international cooperation, and considers the application of obligations of conduct, as well as those of result, in giving this right meaning. This paper also details the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples and how they relate to the right to development. The creation of conditions that enable a state to develop will not necessarily lead to the realization of the right to development by the individuals within that state. Traditionally marginalized groups – notably, minorities and indigenous peoples – may not benefit from this development or may be harmed by it. Even where the right to development is being realized by the majority, the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples could be violated if the process undertaken does not take account of their rights. The authors discuss the need to have in place the standards to ensure that the protection and promotion of minority and indigenous rights are fully integrated into policies designed to fulfil the right to development. Written in cooperation with the UN Independent Expert on the right to development, this work builds on his contribution to the mandated objectives of the inter-state UN Working Group on the Right to Development. It provides an important contribution to the scope of rights and obligations in this area, and the implications that stem from them, particularly for minorities and indigenous peoples.




Water, Cultural Diversity, and Global Environmental Change


Book Description

Co-published with UNESCO A product of the UNESCO-IHP project on Water and Cultural Diversity, this book represents an effort to examine the complex role water plays as a force in sustaining, maintaining, and threatening the viability of culturally diverse peoples. It is argued that water is a fundamental human need, a human right, and a core sustaining element in biodiversity and cultural diversity. The core concepts utilized in this book draw upon a larger trend in sustainability science, a recognition of the synergism and analytical potential in utilizing a coupled biological and social systems analysis, as the functioning viability of nature is both sustained and threatened by humans.