“We are political actors.”

Baguio City, Philippines--Eleanor Dictaan-Bang-oa, coordinator of the Indigenous Women Programme of Tebtebba and secretariat member of the Asia Indigenous Women’s Network (AIWN), emphasized that indigenous women are actively doing different initiatives as political actors during the Capacity Building and Strategy Meeting of Indigenous Women in Asia held on November 13-15 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Twenty-four (24) indigenous women from 11 Asian countries participated in the meeting that aimed to enhance the capacities of indigenous women towards their self-determined and sustainable development.

During the opening session, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, executive director of Tebtebba and convenor of the Asian Indigenous Women’s Network (AIWN), emphasized the importance of upholding equality among men, women, LGBTQI+ and others. “We know that the issues of indigenous women are sensitive but we have standards that we must uphold, the equality between men and women, the LGBTQI+, and others,” she said.

Tauli-Corpuz also highlighted the significance of the participation of indigenous women in the World Conference of Women in Beijing in advancing their human rights and in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She noted the challenges in disseminating the information about the Goals globally and in reaching geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAs) where most indigenous peoples reside.

Emphasizing specific targets with reference to indigenous peoples, Tauli-Corpuz acknowledged the inadequacy of efforts to achieve the SDGs within the stipulated timeframe. “In the report, it says we cannot achieve these goals but possible only over a longer period of time,” she added.

In addition, Dictaan-Bang-oa discussed the salient provisions of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) General Recommendation No. 39 on the Rights of Indigenous Women and Girls adopted in 2022.

She noted that efforts and initiatives are underway to disseminate GR No. 39, including its widespread dissemination among indigenous women and girls (IWGs), indigenous peoples, as well as  states and their agencies, and the use GR No. 39 as an advocacy tool for indigenous women and indigenous peoples at the different levels.

As part of the meeting, Helen Biangalen-Magata of the Climate and Biodiversity Programme of Tebtebba, through a virtual presentation, provided historical contexts and updates on the global discussions on climate change within the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She highlighted gains and achievements of indigenous peoples along with their continuing efforts to push for the inclusion of indigenous people's rights in climate adaptation and mitigation measures.

Similarly, Abigail Kitma, also of the Climate and Biodiversity Programme of Tebtebba, provided through a virtual presentation updates from the processes of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD). She discussed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) as well as the Gender Plan of Action of the CBD.

As part of enhancing the communications skills of the participants to be able to create and share their community data effectively, Jimrex Calatan, communications and outreach staff of Tebtebba, provided basic guidelines on news writing and journalism. Equally, Gideon Ammang, multimedia and communication staff of Tebtebba, conducted a hands-on workshop on creating advocacy materials like picture quotes and infographics using Canva, an online design graphic platform that is used to create social media graphics and presentations. He also shared basic tips on photography and videography to effectively capture highlights of activities.

An important part of the meeting, the participants mapped their different initiatives on sustainable development, on climate change and biodiversity and on advancing their human rights as indigenous peoples and as indigenous women. Some also shared their inputs to the draft action plan of the International Indigenous Women’s forum (IIWF-FIMI) towards the effective implementation of CEDAW GR. No. 39.

In conclusion, Tauli-Corpuz highlighted several aspects crucial for indigenous peoples to continue their advocacy effectively, including building capacity on awareness raising, advocacy, communications, constructive dialogues, and research. “Try to put much more work on awareness raising. We need more women who are empowered, who can occupy positions from local to international levels,” she emphasized.

The activity was jointly implemented by Tebtebba, Asia Indigenous Women’s Network, ELATIA Partnership, and the Indigenous Navigator Initiative. It was supported by AYNI, Bread for the World, the European Union, and The Christensen Fund.

We acknowledge the original peoples of Johor on whose land we gather this week. We stand in solidarity with the Orang Asal, particularly the Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia, who have been continuously marginalized and excluded in decision-making processes and most of whom are unable to join in person today. 

The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change in Asia, which consists of over 50 Indigenous representatives from 7 countries in Asia at the Asia-Pacific Climate Week, would like to remind State Parties of their commitments in implementing climate actions to be based on human rights, including Indigenous Peoples’ rights as enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in achieving the target of less than 1.5 degree Celsius. 

We assert the need to engage Indigenous Peoples here in Malaysia, as it should be in all other countries in Asia and all over the world, as key partners and not as mere beneficiaries as we have been treated for the longest time in the climate dialogue. All climate decisions and actions must take into account priorities and needs of Indigenous Peoples, giving special emphasis on the experience of Indigenous women, Indigenous youth and children, persons with disabilities, and our gender-diverse relatives. The contributions of our traditional knowledge in adaptation, mitigation and even in responding to loss and damage must be recognized and supported. 

While reports from countries indicate an increase in global flow of climate finance, Indigenous Peoples have received hardly anything (or only 1% of the average finance for mitigation and adaptation through Overseas Development Assistance from 2011-2020). This is unacceptable and we demand for data on Indigenous Peoples’ direct access to climate finance in the Global Stocktake and mechanisms for direct access to climate finance for Indigenous Peoples, including in the Loss and Damage Fund. Both appropriate technologies and adequate, sustainable and predictable financing will help us continue our role as stewards of the remaining biodiversity in the world that is crucial to the solution of this climate emergency.

The Loss and Damage Fund must ensure full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples by providing a distinct seat for Indigenous Peoples and operationalizing a programme for direct access financing. 

Adaptation, including in the negotiation of the Global Goal, must ethically and equitably engage with Indigenous knowledge systems, sciences, and ways of knowing and being to prevent maladaptation and violations of our rights. 

In mitigation, real reductions of greenhouse gasses must be done at the source and states must ensure that the green energy transition does not recreate the removal, dispossession, and criminalization that Indigenous Peoples have faced in the current energy system.

Despite the vast potential of renewable energy sources in the region, hundreds of Indigenous communities still lack access to energy, while large-scale projects like wind farms, solar energy farms and hydropower initiatives, are imposed on Indigenous Peoples without their Free Prior and Informed Consent, often resulting in detrimental effects.  Rather than catering to the needs of Indigenous communities, these projects primarily serve urban areas, industries, tourism, and businesses. Addressing this energy access disparity requires urgent action, involving adequate financing, capacity building, transfer of technology to strengthen Indigenous led-initiatives and partnerships with Indigenous communities to ensure their meaningful participation in the planning and management of energy projects aligned with their needs and aspirations. Emphasizing community-led renewable energy initiatives is crucial to prevent Indigenous communities from being marginalized in fulfilling their energy requirements.

The growing demand for clean technologies is fueling increased extraction of critical minerals, compounding already existing threats that Indigenous Peoples face in their territories. This approach to decarbonization is creating a new form of climate change threat, as it encourages extractivism which destroys biodiversity and adversely impacts Indigenous Peoples’ lives and livelihoods.

This week, we have observed the increased interest and push by governments and the private sector to engage in nature-based solutions, specifically the carbon market. This is concerning for us, Indigenous Peoples, as we believe that this is another form of colonization.  Much remains to be understood regarding carbon markets.  

We therefore call for a moratorium on all carbon trading activities in the region until Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their lands and resources are fully recognised and respected, including the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. 

We call for a review of many initiatives that are being implemented in the name of just energy transition and/or conservation for climate solutions. According to the violations reported to Front Line Defenders in 2022, Indigenous Peoples and environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) were the most targeted groups, with arrest and detention, and legal action recorded as the most prominent forms of violations. While comprehensive data of the attacks against EHRDs in Asia Pacific is limited, Forum Asia documented 1,217 violations committed against HRDs in 21 monitored Asian countries from 1 January 2021 to 30 June 2022 and recorded 112 violations against EHRDs in the South East Asia subregion. 

We call for the governments in the Asia-Pacific region for the protection of all environmental, human and Indigenous rights defenders who continue to be criminalized in their struggle to fight for their rights to land and their resources, which are plundered purportedly as climate solutions.

We call for a continuous capacity strengthening of both Indigenous Peoples, to be able to engage meaningfully in climate change negotiation spaces, and of governments and other partner agencies to understand the context and rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

In closing, we recall the words of an Orang Asli elder, Tijah Yok Chopil, “Climate solutions can be found in the wisdom of the people of the land, in including Indigenous Peoples in these processes, we not only ensure sustainable climate solutions but we are also ensuring the survival of the earth we all call home.  Climate change can only be addressed through real and equitable partnerships”. 

Terima kasih.

“The objective of the Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility (IPAF) is to strengthen indigenous peoples’ communities through strengthening their self-driven development within the framework of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), to also generate lessons learned and approaches for replication and upscaling.”

Helen Valdez of Tebtebba stressed the general objective of the IPAF, as she recounted highlights of its history as well as its corresponding call for proposals, project approval, and implementation proper during the IPAF 6 Asia-Pacific: Launching and Inception Workshop in Bangkok, Thailand on 6-10 November 2023. Participated in by about 37 partner representatives from the Asia-Pacific region, the five-day event was a formal opening of its sixth cycle in the area.

In line with the IPAF 6^th Cycle theme, “Advancing Indigenous peoples’ conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity for adaptation and resilience to climate change”, a total of 17 projects in the Asia-Pacific region shall be supported for a span of 36 months inclusive of the four months needed for auditing and finalization of reports, among others.

Because IPAF 6 projects in Asia and the Pacific are monitored and assisted by Tebtebba, the assigned Regional Indigenous Peoples Organization (RIPO) for the Asia-Pacific region, the first day of the event revolved around introductory topics including a backgrounder on Tebtebba and the Indigenous Peoples Sustainable Self-Determined Development (IPSSDD), the main framework that guides all of the organization’s program work. A concise version of the IPSSDD training then commenced, providing participants with a review of the different concepts, instruments, laws, and principles relevant to indigenous peoples and indigenous peoples rights such as the UNDRIP, General Recommendation No. 39 under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), sustainable development, climate change, and biodiversity.

Together, partners walked through the partnership agreement which is a common reference for the implementation of the 17 projects across their diversity. This was followed by a review of the project logical framework as a significant tool in project design, management, monitoring and evaluation followed. Capping the second day was a presentation of the IPAF global indicators for adoption into the projects as they found relevant.

The morning of the third day dwelled on project-based workshops, allowing the partners to finetune their corresponding logframes so as to include several aspects like baselines, indicators, risks and risk mitigation measures. Plenary reporting followed in the afternoon where partners were asked to share about their projects, highlighting their logframes and the indicators identified and adopted. Partners from Cambodia (2), Mongolia (1), Philippines (1), Indonesia (3), India (4), and Papua New Guinea (1) presented in the plenary. “We formed an organization to try to advocate for our rights. [Being granted support to conduct our project is] really an honor and something we are really appreciative of… we are putting every dime so they can know that… constructive participation is going on here,” Steven Magil, project partner of the Mope Development Co-operation Association, Inc. the IPAF partner in Papua New Guinea said. “That’s how far we have tried to lobby for self-determined development,” he added.

The fourth day started with a continuation of the partners’ presentation of projects from Bangladesh (2) and Vietnam (2). After the sharing, Jane Yap-eo of Tebtebba provided some observations including the following: (1) the need to rephrase some of their indicators to render them more specific, (2) the relationship between objective and outcome, (3) the necessity of enlisting several component activities to reach a certain outcome, and (4) the assertion of indicator achievability within a given timeframe. “We still have to further finetune our logframes,” she said.

Eleanor Dictaan-Bang-oa, Coordinator of the Indigenous Women Program of Tebtebba, however, stressed the need to be mindful of the language used. “Language sensitivity must be observed,” she asserted. “We should be careful of the language we use when presenting our projects. We must not mimic stereotypes in describing indigenous peoples. Do not rub salt to the injury,” she emphasized, reiterating the systemic prejudice and historical abuses that indigenous peoples have been dealt with and the necessity of heightening the collective advocacy to stop these.

A session on project narrative reporting took place after the partners’ discussion of their logframes. Dictaan-Bang-oa shared some guidelines on how project narrative reports must be written, stressing that “part of project implementation is the writing of reports” to document results, challenges, lessons learned, and ways forward, among others. “Reports must contain basic details, disaggregated and referenced with supporting documents. Beyond the project logframes, the most important thing that we would like to see, at the end of the cycle, is how projects influenced the lives of your intended partner indigenous peoples’ organizations and/or communities. We have to be mindful of documenting these in various ways, i.e. audio-visual interviews, storytelling, news and/or feature writing, among others,” she emphasized.

The afternoon of the fourth day focused on the finance section of the partnership agreement. Catalino Corpuz Jr, Finance and Administration Manager of Tebtebba, provided the guidelines for the requesting and downloading of funds as he noted that effective financial management is necessary for smooth fund transfers. “We have to ensure that the funds that are sent or transferred to us for a certain year are properly mobilized,” Corpuz said as he stressed the importance of synchronizing project workplans with corresponding budget allocation and submitting documentation on time.

Lea Patugad of Tebtebba continued the discussion of finance matters, presenting the different forms and templates for finance reporting. She then provided exercises, allowing the participants to better understand how the finance process should be.

The last day of the event delved on knowledge management. This author provided the first part of the session, dwelling mainly on the basics of knowledge management, stating that it includes (1) identification, (2) organization, (3) storage, and (4) dissemination of data. She then discussed storytelling and social media as effective tools for dissemination as these were popular ways by which any campaign can be highlighted, made more relatable, and brought more closer to like-minded actors as well as stakeholders. “Effective change can occur when effective information dissemination is pursued, ensuring also that data shared is verifiable and credible,” she said.

Jimrex Calatan of Tebtebba facilitated the next part of the session, presenting how to create impactful videos as part of information dissemination. He presented several examples of video productions that convey specific messages in various ways. “A video is another tool or tactic by which information can be effectively shared,” he shared.

The last session dwelled on the ways forward of the event. “We are still starting our journey and we have to finalize project-related documents to move forward,” noted Dictaan-Bang-oa as she asked partners to work further on their logframes to ensure a smooth start to project implementation.

"Asia-Pacific region, including Southeast Asia, is not on track to achieve any of the 17 SDGs by 2030."

A United Nations Economic and Social Commission in Asia-Pacific (UN-ESCAP) representative pointed out that need for the Asia-Pacific region to improve its efforts toward the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) during the Seventh South-East Asia Multi-Stakeholder Forum and Associated Events held at Bangkok, Thailand on 6-8 November 2023 attended by government representatives, regional and international organizations, United Nations agencies, human rights institutions, and civil society organizations (CSOs), among others.

With the theme "Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and Eradicating Poverty in Times of Multiple Crises: The Effective Delivery of Sustainable, Resilient, and Innovative Solutions in Asia-Pacific", the forum highlighted salient points emanating from the discussions and aimed to foster the development of partnerships to overcome challenges and achieve the countries’ sustainable development aspirations, positively impacting the environment, society, and economy.

In preparation for the 2024 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, the forum reviewed the progresses of SDGs 1 (No Poverty), 2 (Zero Hunger), 13 (Climate Action), 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions), and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), focusing on eradicating poverty while addressing the impacts of multiple crises. This forum is part of a series of five sub-regional forums taking a holistic approach toward addressing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the new global environment and delivering urgent near-term action.

As artificial intelligence (AI) is now emerging as a tool that can derive technological innovation and transformative change across different sectors by facilitating data-driven decision-making, optimizing resource allocation and identifying innovative solutions to complex challenges, session one, Reducing Inequalities: AI for Development - Catalyzing Inclusive Development & Sustainable Progress in Southeast Asia, focused on addressing the development challenges and promoting inclusive growth in Asia and the Pacific, with a particular focus on Southeast Asia and exploring the role of AI in advancing development.

The second session contributed to the regional disclosure of SDG 17 implementation and its implications for net-zero perspectives. It aimed to guide regional stakeholders toward innovative solutions and collaborative efforts to build a more sustainable future for the region. This session, SDG 17 - Perspectives and Partnerships on Delivering the SDGs on Southeast Asia, explored the role of digital ecosystems that can facilitate collaboration between governments, businesses and civil society to achieve sustainable development.

To generate renewed progress towards food security and nutrition in Southeast Asia, and to put the region back on track toward achieving SDG 2, solutions are needed to transform food systems and to reduce and mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and increasingly severe climatic shocks, with a particular focus on vulnerable populations. The third session took stock of the most recent trends related to food security and malnutrition to examine the potential of digital technologies to improve progress towards these targets.

The fourth session on SDG 13, Climate Action, focused on aligning foreign direct investment (FDI) and investment promotion agencies' (IPAs) strategies to help in achieving climate goals. The session also looked at how utilizing digital innovation can boost efforts in attracting climate FDI.

Migration can be a powerful tool for achieving the SDGs by promoting the development of social and economic remittance, knowledge, and skills transfer, hence, session five on SDG 16 highlighted how technology and digital solutions can be harnessed to address migration-related challenges, foster regional cooperation and explore opportunities for integrating the principles and objectives of the global compact for migration (GCM) into national and regional policies to enhance coherence and effectiveness.

The third day was allotted for associated events of the forum including the SDG Partnership Forum and Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) Clinic. The SDGS Partnership Forum was a 2-hour consultative session that aimed to gather feedback and inputs from governments, international organizations, academia, think tanks, CSOs, and other subregional SDG practitioners on the 2024 Asia-Pacific SDG partnership report covering the interconnected challenges of climate change, poverty, and food security as well as the solutions, good practices, and policies that tackle the issues within this nexus in a time of multiple crises while the Voluntary National Reviews Clinic presented ESCAP's support and tools for VNR preparation and promoted collaboration among countries in Southeast Asia for VNRs and SDG acceleration.

Outcomes and recommendations derived from the forum will feed into regional and global processes, including the annual Asia-Pacific Forum for Sustainable Development (APFSD) on February 2024 and the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) on July 2024.