Poverty in Focus - Indigenising Development

The publication offers a thought-provoking analysis on the concept of development and how indigenous peoples understand and live with this concept. Among the various social groups that have been historically excluded, indigenous peoples comprise one that offers great challenges to development. Although their assimilation has been a goal of the national societies that engulfed them, it is disputable whether indigenous peoples desire the type of social inclusion that development, in its many forms, can produce. At the same time, development seems irreversible, and resistance to it might have consequences far more adverse than those brought by acceptance. The best way to overcome the challenges seems to be to indigenise development: to put it to work on behalf of indigenous peoples instead of putting them to work for a model of development that is not only alien to them but that frequently does violence to their culture. For more on the publication visit the UNDP website.