Advancing the Rights of the World’s Indigenous Peoples
An advocate draws inspiration from his roots to promote the voices of Indigenous Peoples globally
My grandfather was born in an impoverished Indigenous community in the Chimborazo province in the central Andean highlands of Ecuador. Home of the Puruwá nation, Chimborazo owes its name to the majestic snow-capped mountain, which at 6,310 meters (20,700 feet) above sea level is the country’s tallest.
Ecuador is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, and Chimborazo is the poorest of all its 22 provinces. In the early 1900s, my grandfather left his community to work, study, and travel. He spent close to 18 years in Europe, and came back to Ecuador to raise a family in the port city of Guayaquil with the ability to speak six languages, including his native Quichua.
My memories of him growing up were that of a stubborn, old man with deep Indigenous features who would lecture us on the plight of the Indigenous communities of our country, and the love and reverence with which we must relate to our roots and identity.
In 1973, many years after he had passed away, I returned to Ecuador after completing boarding school in the United States to attend the largest public university in the country. It was my linguistics professor who helped me reconnect with my roots.
One weekend, she took me on the four-hour bus ride to Riobamba, the capital city of Chimborazo. There amongst the green mountains with black volcanic soil, blue skies, and dark brown adobe houses of the Puruwá people, I felt an immediate connection. Since that moment, I knew I wanted to do something to remain connected to the land and people of my ancestors — finally understanding the passion my grandfather felt and had tried to inculcate in us.
As USAID’s Senior Advisor on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues, I now have the ability to make a difference on a global scale.
Over the last 40 years, as I met more people from Indigenous communities and roots, I could see how parallel our lives had been, yet so different at the same time. From these experiences, I began to fully admire the intelligence, persistence, resilience, and determination of thousands of Indigenous leaders from around the world. Many have sacrificed much in the fight for recognition and respect for the rights of the Indigenous Peoples of the world.
Today, we are 370 million strong, and belong to 5,000 distinct nations. We speak 4,000 of the 6,000 languages in the world. In our lands and territories, recognized or not, live 80 percent of the remaining biodiversity of the earth, of which we have the crucial role as stewards of the world’s remaining intact ecosystems such as the Amazon and the Congo Basin.
A Global Struggle
As the former Global Advisor on Indigenous Peoples at the World Bank, I traveled the globe in dialogues and consultations, in workshops and field visits from the northern mountains of Vietnam, to the Karelia Republic in the Russian Federation to Iquitos in the Peruvian Amazon to Douala in Cameroon to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Seen as obstacles to development and progress, Indigenous Peoples often face outright lack of recognition, intrusion into their territories, destruction of forests, contamination of water sources, and efforts to discourage or eliminate native languages.
In summary, Indigenous communities are under attack.
Collectively, we have endured colonial imposition, attempts of assimilation, and efforts of elimination. We suffer from poorer health, are more likely to experience disability, and ultimately die younger than the rest of the population.
Indigenous women and children are particularly hard hit by the structural inequalities that our communities face around the world. They are often denied access to education, basic health services, and economic opportunities, leaving them disproportionately vulnerable in the face of natural disasters and armed conflict. Many of the most widespread causes of death among Indigenous children — such as malnutrition, diarrhea, parasitic infections, and tuberculosis — are preventable.
At USAID, I have seen efforts to reverse this trend.
This fall, we hope to launch the first-ever USAID Policy to Promote the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which will ensure that the well-being of Indigenous Peoples is part of an inclusive development agenda. It will also promote their rights to collective ownership of lands, resources, and knowledge.
Additionally, we intend to help 1.6 million Indigenous Peoples in the Amazon region to better defend their rights and become more effective partners for governments and businesses to address the major threats against the environment, biodiversity, and livelihoods.
In the more than two decades spent working with Indigenous peoples to promote and defend their rights, I have seen firsthand the devastating impacts that poorly conceived development projects have on communities, and witnessed the brutality that native communities are met with when they seek to protect themselves and their lands.
In my new role, I hope to develop strategies, programs, and projects that will ensure that Indigenous Peoples are included as equal partners in all of USAID’s work.
About the Author
Luis Felipe Duchicela is USAID’s Senior Advisor on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues.
