Now More Important Than Ever: Achieving Representation of Indigenous Peoples and Knowledge in Disaster Risk Reduction Policy Making

Date and Time: 24 April 2023, 18:30 – 19:45

Duration: 1h 15 min

Location: Room CR-F, UN HQ, New York, USA

Side event to the Twenty-Second Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 

The annual theme of the Twenty-Second Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is “Indigenous Peoples, human health, planetary and territorial health and climate change: a rights-based approach”. Indigenous Peoples are on the front line of rapidly increasing disaster risk and climate change and environmental degradation because of their close relationship with the environment and its resources. As vital custodians of the world’s landscapes - Indigenous Peoples own, occupy, or use a quarter of the world’s surface area, they safeguard 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity. They hold vital ancestral knowledge and expertise on how to adapt, mitigate, and reduce climate and disaster risks. 

On the other hand, while Indigenous Peoples make up just 6 percent of the global population, they account for about 19 percent of the extreme poor. A legacy of inequality and exclusion has put Indigenous Peoples more at risk to the impacts of climate change and disasters. They are often last to receive public investments in basic services and infrastructure and face multiple barriers to participate fully in the formal economy, enjoy access to justice, and participate in political processes and decision making. Disasters are deepening these vulnerabilities and inequality, are creating a spiral of far more disaster risk and losses than humanity can cope with. 

This has to change. 

2023 marks the midpoint in implementing the Sendai Framework, the 2030 Agenda and other 2015 agreements. Sendai Framework Midterm Review (MTR) is concluding this year with the High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly. The findings of the MTR Thematic Study on Diverse Knowledge Systems have indicated how tremendously valuable the indigenous knowledge is for DRR and how important it is to integrate it and involve indigenous peoples in the DRR, building resilience policy and decision-making process.

Entering the second half of the Sendai Framework term, UNDRR is launching an advocacy campaign to promote Indigenous Peoples’ participation in DRR policy making. Simultaneously, UNDRR collaborated with ICCROM and prepared new policy guidelines Words into Action: Using Traditional and Indigenous Knowledges for Disaster Risk Reduction to encourage integrating indigenous knowledge in DRR and translate Sendai Framework into implementable actions for DRR.

This side event will present the Words Into Action thematic study findings and practical guidance on how indigenous knowledge can be used to reduce, prepare for and respond to disasters and be included in decision-making. It will bring together indigenous practitioners, community leaders, researchers, and allies to unpack how can we ensure better participation of the indigenous peoples and knowledge in DRR policy making.

Speakers: 

Rohit Jigyasu, Words into Action Editor and Contributing Author, Project Manager on Urban Heritage, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management, International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad

Allen A. Capuyan, Chairperson, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, Philippines

Simon Lambert, Associate Professor in Indigenous Studies, University of Saskatchewan

Andrea Kelly, Group Manager at the National Indigenous Australians Agency