IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanzwe (centre) joins in a traditional Fijian dance at the opening ceremony of the second Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples' Forum, February 2015. Credit: IFAD

By Valentina Gasbarri
ROME, Feb 17 2015 (IPS)

“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children” – an ancient Indian saying that encapsulates the essence of sustainability as seen by the world’s indigenous people.

With their deep and locally-rooted knowledge of the natural world, indigenous peoples have much to share with the rest of the world about how to live, work and cultivate in a sustainable manner that does not jeopardise future generations.

This was the main message brought to the second Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum, organised by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) last week in Rome.“We have learned the relevance of the diversity and distinctiveness of peoples and rural communities and of valuing and building on their cultural identity as an asset and economic potential. The ancient voice of the natives can be the solution to many crises” – Antonella Cordone, IFAD

The Indigenous Peoples’ Forum represents a unique initiative within the U.N. system. It is a concrete expression of IFAD’s recognition of the role that indigenous peoples play in economic and social development through traditional sustainable practices and provides IFAD with an institutional mechanism for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the agency’s engagement with indigenous peoples.

This engagement includes achievement of the objectives of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Despite major improvements in recent decades, indigenous and tribal peoples – as well as ethnic minorities – continue to be among the poorest and most marginalised people in the world.

There are over 370 million indigenous peoples in some 70 countries worldwide, with the majority living in Asia. They account for an estimated five percent of the world’s population, with 15 percent of these peoples living in poverty.  Various recent studies show that the poverty gap between indigenous peoples and other rural populations is increasing in some parts of the world.

“IFAD is making all efforts to ensure that the indigenous peoples’ voice is being heard, rights are respected and well-being is improving at the global level,” said Antonella Cordone, IFAD’s Senior Technical Specialist for Indigenous peoples and Tribal Issues.

“We have learned the relevance of the diversity and distinctiveness of peoples and rural communities and of valuing and building on their cultural identity as an asset and economic potential,” she continued. “The ancient voice of the natives can be the solution to many crises.”

As guardians of the world’s natural resources and vehicles of traditions over the years, indigenous peoples developed a holistic approach to sustainable development and, as the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, highlighted during an Asia-Pacific working group session, “indigenous peoples’ livelihoods are closely interlinked with cultural heritage and identities, spirituality and governance systems.”

These livelihoods have traditionally been based on handing down lands and territories to new generations without exploiting them for maximum profit. Today, these livelihoods are threatened by climate change and third party exploitation, among others.

Climate change, to which indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable, is posing a dramatic threat through melting glaciers, advancing desertification, floods and hurricanes in coastal areas.

Long-standing pressure from logging, mining and advancing agricultural frontiers have intensified the exploitation of new energy sources, construction of roads and other infrastructures, such as dams, and have raised concerns about large-scale acquisition of land for commercial or industrial purposes, commonly known as land grabbing.

In this context, the Forum stressed the need for the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of indigenous peoples whenever development projects affect their access to land and resources, a requirement which IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanzwe said should be respected by any organisation engaging with indigenous peoples.

Poverty and loss of territories and resources by indigenous peoples due to policies or regulations adverse to traditional land use practices are compounded by frequent discrimination in labour markets, where segmentation, poor regulatory frameworks and cultural and linguistic obstacles allow very few indigenous peoples to access quality jobs and social and health services.

Moreover, indigenous peoples suffer from marginalisation from political processes and gender-based discrimination.

These are among the issues that participants at the Forum said should be taken into account in the post-2015 development agenda. They said that this agenda should be designed to encourage governments and other actors to facilitate the economic and social empowerment of poor rural people, in particular, marginalized rural groups, such as women, children and indigenous peoples.

A starting point for the architecture of the agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that expire at the end of this year was seen as the recommendations adopted during the two-day Forum (Feb. 12-13).

These included the need for a holistic approach to supporting and strengthening indigenous peoples’ food systems, recognition of traditional tenure, conservation of biodiversity,  respect for and revitalisation of cultural and spiritual values, and ensuring that projects be designed with the FPIC of indigenous peoples.

Participants said that it is important to emphasise the increasing need to strengthen the participation and inclusion of indigenous peoples in discussions at the political and operational level, because targets in at these levels can have a catalytic effect on their social and economic empowerment.

The Forum agreed that giving the voice to indigenous people and their concerns and priorities in the post-2015 agenda represents an invaluable window of opportunity for development.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Moselyn Muchena, one of the girls being given a chance under the TechWomen initiative. Credit: Mary Kashumba/IPS

By Mary Kashumba
HARARE, Jul 10 2014 (IPS)

For 22-year-old Moselyn Muchena, a final year computer science student at the University of Zimbabwe, it seemed obvious to create a mobile application offering easy access to services in the local catering industry, largely because of the huge number of female entrepreneurs in that sector.

“The kinds of problems these women are going through inspired me to come up with an innovative application for the industry called ORDER NOW, through which they can [post] their menus and specials, as well as their location and the prices of items.

“The application is also interactive, allowing customers to share [their reviews] on other social networks platforms … and it offers a platform for feedback, which is vital for businesses,” Muchena told IPS. The app also allows for advertising.“We want to tap into the creative and innovative base of 52 percent of the population. Imagine what the world has lost in innovation due to the lack of or fewer women in these creative spaces” – TechWomen Zimbabwe

“I am grateful to get this opportunity to create a culinary application that can be used by restaurants, where mostly women dominate the field,” she said, adding that she hoped her app will have a global reach.

According to Farai Mutambanengwe, president of the Small to Medium Scale Enterprises Association of Zimbabwe, women dominate the catering industry in Zimbabwe. He told IPS that while the association had no actual analysis “on the number of women who are in the culinary industry compared with men, generally women continue to grow in dominating this field.”

Muchena sees herself as paving the way for other girls to enter the fields of science and technology. “Being the only girl doing computer science in my class, I used to feel like an outcast and it took me time to blend in to become part of the class and not ‘the woman’ in the class. I said to myself I would also pave the way for young girls who aspire to have a career in technological innovations.”

The young innovator is just one of over 100 girls and women aged between 10 and 23 who are creating innovative technologies to address community problems in Zimbabwe. They are part of a U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs initiative called TechWomen, a programme designed to empower, connect and support the next generation of women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Referring to her own experience in developing her software, Muchena pointed out that there was an urgent need for investors in the field of science. “Our plight as young science entrepreneurs is that there are no investors willing to engage youths who are coming up with innovations.” However, lack of investment in the science sector has dwindled as a result of a restrictive economy.

According to a 2008 report in the Economic Reform Feature Service  of the Centre for International Enterprise (CIPE), “the education system in Zimbabwe has long suffered from an insufficient focus on teaching practical skills, limited access to higher education opportunities, and unequal access for girls to specialised fields such as science.”

“Successful educational reform is a necessary step to create the basis for sustained economic growth and requires the involvement of all stakeholders, ranging from families and civil society into national and local governments as well as the private sector,” said the report.

National Zimbabwean statistics for 2012 show that the number of women who enrolled in faculties of engineering, computer science and science technology at university level were 17 percent, 35 percent and 22 percent respectively in 2009. A year later, women’s enrolment in these faculties were 17. 5 percent, 39 percent and 18 percent respectively.

Chemical technologist Aretha Mare, one of the members of TechWomen Zimbabwe, founded by five Zimbabwean women who graduated from the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen initiative, told IPS that its vision is to see gender parity, or 50 percent representation of women in all STEM professions.

“We want to tap into the creative and innovative base of 52 percent of the population,” says TechWomen Zimbabwe. “Imagine what the world has lost in innovation due to the lack of or fewer women in these creative spaces.”

Mare said that under the TechWomen initiative, “the women act as role models, mentors and teachers, creating a networking platform and peer-to-peer interaction with sharing of knowledge to keep them motivated and sharing of opportunities, thus avoiding the leaky pipe where a few women who pursue STEM careers also switch careers or leave due to frustrations in the workplace.”

According to Mare, “the girls’ programme aims to expose girls to STEM fields through experiential learning, where they identify problems, use STEM to solve them, recalibrate and ideate again. We try to do it in hands on, fun and engaging way.”

“We believe we are causing a revolution, transitioning Zimbabwe into a tech power house through girls and women as we target girls from marginalised backgrounds (both in school and out of school), some of them with no prior computer experience and most with limited access to technology. So far we have trained over 100 girls,” she added.

Meanwhile, under its Strategic Plan (2011-2015), Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in partnership with the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has embarked on a massive programme to revive science teaching in the country. The programme is being funded through the Education Development Fund (EDF), a multi-donor funding mechanism.

The programme has already distributed 2,449 sciences kits and is currently working on the re-training of more than 5,000 science teachers from the 2,336 secondary schools in the country on the safe use and maintenance of the equipment in the kits.

For Muchena, it all comes down to convincing parents and the government to strive to ensure that talent is given a chance. “I encourage parents and the authorities to understand that sometimes it is not about the academic aspects but about realising a child’s ability and nurturing it into something big.”