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Indigenous Peoples and the Bank
Nations, Indigenous Peoples, and the World Bank
The World Bank’s 183 member countries, whose views and interests are represented by its Board of Governors and Board of Executive Directors, recognize the sacred trust they have in working with Indigenous Peoples and in guiding their socioeconomic development. The World Bank as an institution therefore respects fully the sovereign rights of nations to manage their own affairs and to plan a development process that best suits the interests of all their people, including Indigenous Peoples.
Yet the World Bank also recognizes that Indigenous Peoples hold a special place in the world due to their unique circumstances, heritage, and history. With some estimates placing their number at over 200 million and living in more than seventy countries, Indigenous Peoples have historically been the most disadvantaged, marginalized and excluded populations in many parts of the world. Their identities, cultures, lands, and resources are uniquely intertwined and especially vulnerable to changes caused by development programs.
The Bank’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples in the twenty-first century has moved beyond its modest “do no harm” objective of its earliest policies of a generation ago. Beyond the safeguard Indigenous Peoples Policy, the Bank is committed to a wide variety of indigenous development activities to meet the serious development challenges facing Indigenous Peoples, as outlined above. To adequately respond to those challenges, the Bank's Program must be based on a long-term perspective, which recognizes the complexity of the situations faced by indigenous people in each country where they live and the challenges in bringing about change in historic attitudes, practice and behavior.
In a time of increasing resource scarcity, the greatest challenge for development agencies is to learn to build on the strengths of existing social and cultural organizations. The World Bank and its indigenous partners must therefore work to protect indigenous communities’ wealth of social, biological, and cultural diversity, while expanding peoples’ livelihood options and their access to healthcare, education, and security. The wisdom and experience of Indigenous Peoples have survived for many generations and it is the Bank’s aim to help ensure that they remain for generations to come.
The Bank’s Cultural Diversity and Indigenous Peoples Thematic Team
This team of social scientists based in the Bank’s regions is responsible for the day-to-day work of ensuring that vulnerable cultural and ethnic groups, including Indigenous peoples, are included as a vital part of Bank-financed operations.
This is how they see their task and the role of the Bank in promoting Indigenous Peoples’ development.
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