The UN system and a significant number of its Member States are currently gearing their programming at the national level for the achievement of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 18 targets and 48 indicators. The formulation of the Goals and the targets and indicators, however, did not include the participation of or consultation with indigenous peoples. They have, therefore, not captured many criteria that are essential for the well-being of indigenous peoples. In order to address these issues, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has identified a number of strategies and policy outcomes. At its Fourth Session in 2005, the Permanent Forum stated that “…Poverty indicators based on indigenous peoples' own perception of their situation and experiences should be developed jointly with indigenous peoples”.1 The Forum also recommended that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development Initiative work further on the development of cultural indicators for identifying priorities, criteria and methodologies for the right to food and food security.
Data Collection and Disaggregation has been identified as a major methodological issue in the course of various sessions of the Permanent Forum. It was explored in some detail at a workshop of the Permanent Forum on Data Collection and Disaggregation for Indigenous Peoples in January 2004 (www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/news/news_workshop_doc.htm). The workshop recommended that the UN system use and further refine existing indicators such as the common country assessment indicators, the MDG indicators, country progress reports, other global monitoring instruments and the human development indices to measure the situation of indigenous peoples.
At its Third Session, the Permanent Forum recommended to the UN Development Group ‘that the indicators of the Millennium Development Goals be assessed and that additional indicators be identified to give fuller assessment of environmental sustainability’.
The UN system, through the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues, has undertaken a review of existing indicators that may directly or indirectly concern or relate to indigenous peoples. The results of the review will be presented at the Fifth Session of the Permanent Forum, in May 2006. In order to assist in this effort, the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum is organizing a series of meetings to bring together experts on indigenous indicators to build on the challenges, gaps, and existing work on global and regional indicators across the mandated areas of the Permanent Forum on health, human rights, economic and social development, environment, education, and culture. The Ottawa workshop focused on indigenous peoples in developed countries and the results of this process will be presented to the Fifth Session of the Permanent Forum. The workshop took place on 22 and 23 March 2006 within the framework of the Aboriginal Policy Research Conference. It was co-sponsored by the Canadian Government. Mr. Wilton Littlechild, Member of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, was the Chairperson and Ms. Valerie Gideon, Director of First Nations Health at the Assembly of First Nations, was the Rapporteur. The list of participants is attached in Annex I.
