Some Amerindian communities tardy in accessing help – Minister tells Wiruni

GUYANA (Stabroek News) - Government will continue to support the transformation of the economies in Amerindian communities but slow responses from areas like Wiruni have been affecting increased development.

According to the Government Information Agency (GINA), Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai, during a recent Cabinet outreach to the community of Wiruni in Region Ten, stated that the Amerindian Affairs Ministry has been engaging residents but slothfulness in several areas such as the non-submission of Community Development Plans (CDP) by some communities has been affecting development.

According to GINA, the creation of CDPs are essential to the development of village communities as they outline key developmental projects and Minister Sukhai indicated that to aid the process the agency created and distributed templates of a CDP to communities.

She said that the late submissions are causing setbacks leading to a call for village management to be upgraded. She added that the President had given one month for the development plan to be on stream and according to GINA some $5M will be distributed to each community for financing of the plan. The Minister stated that the funds derived from an initiative of the government to commit state forests even though Amerindians have not yet committed their forested area.

Minister Sukhai also stated that some communities have been late in uplifting their presidential grants which in turn leads to slow development with Wiruni highlighted as one community which is yet to uplift its grant for 2009. She also stated that some villages have weaknesses as regards governance but government was committed to working with such areas.

Residents at Wiruni raised several concerns with the team, including the establishment of a secondary school for the area as well as the non-distribution of National Identification cards by the Elections Commission.

GINA stated that the visit by Sukhai and a team, included Liaison Officer Norman Whittaker and Region Ten Regional Executive Officer Devon Bremner. The purpose of the visit was to have an interactive forum with residents of the community, including its Toshao Rohan Fredericks. Minister Sukhai stated that most projects highlighted in this year’s National Budget are in progress and at the same time Cabinet members are visiting communities to establish whether citizens are satisfied with service provided.

She said President Bharrat Jagdeo has demonstrated the administration’s commitment to the Amerindian people by donating his financial reward of US$40,000 from his Champion of the Earth award towards Amerindian development.

GINA stated that the promotion of food security and transformation of village economies are being encouraged by the administration and the government is encouraging Amerindians to engage in sustainable farming practices.

Source: Stabroek News

President commits $25M for St Cuthbert’s Mission road

GUYANA - President Bharrat Jagdeo has committed $25M to building a road from the Linden Highway to St Cuthbert’s Mission to facilitate easier transporting of goods to the coast.

According to a Government Information Agency (GINA) press release the President made this proposal to residents on his second visit to the Mission located 50 miles up the Mahaica River. Residents greeted the proposal with loud cheers and suggested that the same method used to pave the access road to Laluni could be used.

“You need quick and reliable means of transporting your goods from here into the marketplace which is the coast and Georgetown,” Jagdeo said and suggested that a meeting be convened with the council, the villagers and the Ministry of Public Works to assess the available options. GINA said the president’s team including Amerindian Affairs, Education and Health ministers Pauline Sukhai, Shaik Baksh and Dr Bheri Ramsaran met with residents at the St Cuthbert’s Mission Primary School.

Source: Stabroek News

First Week of UN Indigenous Forum Ends

United Nations, NY (UCTP Taino News) – The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, a UN body mandated to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights ended its first week of work today. Government representatives, UN agencies, and indigenous representatives from around the world presented reports and statements on key areas of concern.

See full story at UCTP Taino News

APA urges donors to ensure indigenous rights upheld when they finance forest conservation

GUYANA - Worried about unresolved land titling and a lack of meaningful participation in decision-making, the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) has urged donors to ensure that indigenous peoples’ guaranteed rights are fully upheld in all forest conservation activities they finance here.

As a result, the APA and some community leaders are calling for an urgent review and amendment of the current Amerindian Act to strengthen land rights as well as the creation of safeguards to ensure that opt-in/opt-out procedures under the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) comply with principles of free, prior, and informed consent. Additionally, they recommended the establishment of an independent Amerindian advisory group to complement the LCDS multi-stakeholder committee and a working group to address the application of international standards in the process.

In a March 10, 2010 letter to Turid Johansen Arnegaard, Senior Advisor for Indigenous Peoples Issues in the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, the APA and the community leaders said that the recommendations follow concerns about the lack of an adequate legal framework to protect the rights of the indigenous peoples, including what it described as the absence of meaningful participation in the decision-making on the LCDS/REDD+. “These concerns are crucially important to the sustainability of LCDS/REDD+ but have yet to be adequately addressed,” the APA said, noting that while it fully supports culturally appropriate sustainable development and reducing carbon emissions, the initiatives should not be done at the expense of indigenous peoples’ rights.

The letter has been the source of a recent row between the APA and other indigenous groups over the LCDS. The government has maintained that the LCDS and REDD+ processes have demonstrated openness, transparency, accountability, availability of information and public participation. Further, it has said that from the onset, the LCDS sensitisation education and consultation process was designed and implemented in accordance with international best practice. An independent international NGO, the London-based International Institute for Environmental Development (IIED), provided monitoring of the entire stakeholder engagement process of the LCDS and concluded that the “the LCDS has established the principle of FPIC as the standard for Amerindian communities.”

In the letter, the APA noted that protecting the country’s forests are in the interest of the nation and the world, and it endorsed the idea that the people should benefit from any payments that may be made to protect Guyana’s forests. However, it said a significant percentage of the forest is owned by indigenous peoples, both by virtue of titles issued by the state as well as traditional ownership recognised by international law.

The group’s primary concern is the adequacy of the existing legal framework for the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights here, and particularly in the area of regularisation and protection of their rights to own and control their traditional lands, territories and resources. “While Guyana often talks about the number of villages that hold title, the percentage of Guyana covered by these titles, and the need to complete its process of demarcation, these statements neither dispose of this issue,” it said, adding that the process for titling lands falls short of international obligations. “At present, Guyana’s land titling process is simply an exercise in unilateral and unfettered rule by the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs that has little to do with satisfying indigenous peoples’ rights,” the APA argued. It said too that rights of appeal are limited by the absence of enumerated rights and indigenous peoples are left with little option other than to accept the Ministry’s decision.

The APA pointed out that the MOU and the government’s submissions to the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) frame indigenous peoples’ rights solely in the context of Guyana’s existing legislative and constitutional framework. It added that while the underlying assumption appeared to be that the extant legal framework is adequate, both in terms of its recognition and protection of indigenous peoples’ rights, the 2006 Amerindian Act and other important elements of the country’s constitutional framework have been found wanting by the World Bank and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

According to the findings of a 2008 World Bank study, ’The Role of Indigenous Peoples in Biodiversity Conservation,’ the country’s legislation to protect indigenous peoples is “weak.” The Bank also said it was unable to change the framework in place to have adequate recognition of indigenous rights. Its findings were related to the failure of the World Bank/GEF Guyana/National Protected Areas System Project. Meanwhile, two years prior to this, CERD had found that many of the Amerindian Act’s provisions were incompatible with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Among CERD’s findings was the lack of legal recognition of the rights of ownership and possession of indigenous communities over lands they traditionally occupied. In addition, it was also concerned about the state’s practice of granting land titles excluding bodies of waters and subsoil resources to indigenous communities on the basis of unfair criteria. By virtue of Article 154A of the constitution, Guyana is bound to observe the provisions of the convention as part of its international obligations, but the APA said the country has been in breach for four years. “At the very least, these findings call into question key assumptions in the FCPF submissions and the MOU that should provoke… a serious examination of these issues by independent and qualified experts with the full participation of indigenous peoples’ freely chosen representatives,” the APA said. In particular, it argued that the Amerindian Act, in the areas of the regularisation of indigenous peoples’ lands and other issues, must be amended to ensure consistency with Guyana’s international human rights obligations as a prior condition to any financing of further LCDS/REDD+ activities.

Further, the APA said there is also an urgent need to carry out an impartial review of all land titling decisions made to date. The review, it explained, must include an assessment of the extent to which said decisions may or may not be compatible with indigenous peoples’ rights in international law.

Meanwhile, the APA also argued that there has not been adequate participation by the indigenous people in decision-making. It explained that while the process for discussing the LCDS/REDD+ was lauded by the government and others, it has not adequately informed the indigenous people or secured their participation in decision-making. “This does not bode well for the long-term sustainability and effectiveness of the LCDS/REDD+ in Guyana and is contrary to the rights of indigenous peoples,” it said. “The right to participate is triggered at the very earliest stages of the project not after the parameters have been unilaterally predetermined by the State,” it added.

The APA said recent official outreach efforts on the LCDS did not meet the required standards for good faith public consultation, noting that meetings were rushed, documents were not supplied with sufficient time prior, and absent or weak translation support. On the latter point, it noted that local Amerindian translators did not receive prior training in technical climate change and REDD+ terms.

The APA was also critical of the government’s “undue reliance” on only one organisation − the National Toshaos Council − in the discussions. It said the government did not ensure that the council was the organisation legitimately identified by the indigenous peoples as their representative on the issues, as required by international law. While the council is an important statutory body, the APA explained, the views of its executive members must not be substituted for the freely expressed views of indigenous peoples in Guyana.

Source: Stabroek News

Amerindian communities likely to get up to $7M extra for development

GUYANA - President Bharrat Jagdeo told Toshaos from various sub-districts in the Rupununi that this year each community is likely to receive up to $7 million for development in addition to the annual Presidential Grant.

According to the Government Information Agency (GINA), the president said the sums ranging from $5 million to $7 million will be used to promote food security and profit-making ventures.

He said with funds expected from the implementation of the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), he had decided to set aside about US$5M (equivalent to G$1B) in addition for Amerindian communities’ development.

As regard food security, Jagdeo stressed the importance of better drainage and irrigation systems, which he said will boost agriculture productivity and diversify the range of products grown. Guyana is expected to be able to expand access to services and provide new economic opportunities for Amerindian communities within the framework of the LCDS.

“The draft LCDS document states that transforming Guyana’s economy will require among other things, striking a balance between using forest payments to enhance the opportunities for those who live in the forest and recognising the rights of other Guyanese citizens, including the urban poor,” GINA said.

In June 2009 the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs partnered with Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) to launch the National Secure Livelihood Programme (NSLP) which sought to address the challenges hampering economic development in the Amerindian villages and hinterland communities through the creation of employment opportunities, sustaining food security, income generation, wealth creation, economic diversification and secure livelihoods. Six VSO Specialists were employed to spur economic development in Region One, focusing on agriculture, aquaculture, pest management, food technology, business, development, marketing and finance and organisational development.

According to GINA, the Presidential Grant was established in 2007 with $150M allocated for meeting the social and economic needs of 140 communities. The Grant was also offered in 2008 but last year 20 additional communities became eligible for grants and as a result $160M was allocated.

Source: Stabroek News