Independent Evaluation

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Marginalization or extinction threaten the lives, livelihoods, cultures, and languages of indigenous peoples. The difficult challenges relate to cultural and linguistic preservation, land rights, ownership and exploitation of natural resources, political determination and autonomy, environmental degradation, poverty, health, and discrimination.

The United Nations reckon indigenous peoples at 300–370 million worldwide, composed of over 5,000 distinct groups in 70 countries on five continents. About 150 million of them live in Asia and 68 million are scheduled tribes in India.

ADB's policy on indigenous peoples was approved in 1998. It defines indigenous peoples more expansively than the United Nations as peoples with a social or cultural identity distinct from the dominant or mainstream society.

ADB's policy intends that development interventions should be compatible in substance and structure with indigenous peoples' social, cultural, and economic institutions, and consistent with their needs and aspirations. Projects should make sure that they are at least as well-off as they would have been without development interventions.

Developing member countries of ADB think that compliance acts as a disincentive to seeking ADB financing. Some think their policies of acceptable standard. Nongovernment organizations contend that consultations, public disclosure, implementation, and monitoring need improvement. ADB's mission leaders find the policy hard to apply.

In 2006, the Operations Evaluation Department in ADB found that decisions taken by ADB's Management had expanded the scope of the policy: its focus on "adverse and significant" impacts had been reinterpreted to cover "adverse or positive" impacts. Associated procedures had become more complex.

The policy is somewhat confusing as the distinction between indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities is not always clear. And, the policy is ambiguous about whether the definitions provided by national legislations or that derived from the policy should be followed.

What is more, the policy overlaps with ADB's policies on involuntary resettlement and the environment. Also, the need to prepare development plans for projects with significant benefits to indigenous peoples, and actions for projects with limited positive or negative impacts on them, has left unclear the nature of these plans and actions. In addition, consultation has been expanded to establish something very close to the full consent of indigenous peoples.

Toward the policy update scheduled in 2007, the study recommended that ADB should set goals where ADB's forward program involves considerable interaction with indigenous peoples.

And, the study argued that if ADB maintains a stand-alone policy it should include a results-based framework at country and at project levels. A sequential approach to policy development and capacity building should be followed, focusing on a few countries.

Certainly, indigenous people development plans should be prepared for projects that have clear risks that can be mitigated. But, conceptual and case study work must identify the risks associated with different types of investment as there is a high degree of divergence among approaches to defining risk.

The policy update should list the criteria to follow to determine the amount of consultation and broad communication support, and how it endorses the principle of free, prior, and informed consent for the project by indigenous peoples.