NEW YORK – The voluntary fund the United Nations set up in 1995 to pay for projects engendered by its International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples had raised just $2.1 million through January of this year, UN documents show.
The skimpiness of contributions have forced some contemplated projects to go unfunded each year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR).
Conspicuously absent were any contributions to this or a previous (started in 1985) UN Indigenous Peoples’ fund by the United States – although there was one contribution to the original fund by a government within the United States, that of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe.
Regular contributors to the Indigenous Decade fund have included Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway and Japan.
The voluntary fund’s advisory group approved 130 projects for $1,188,729 in the years 1998-2002, according to UNHCHR. It has also funded workshops and seminars by the High Commissioner’s Indigenous Projects Team.
Those approvals were never more than 50 percent of admissible applications received, nor more than 14 percent of money requested, the High Commissioner reported.
The advisory group reported “not enough money was available to finance the totality of applications for project grants received for 2002 and new proposals made by the Indigenous Projects Team for workshops and seminars to be held from May 2002 to April 2003.”
It appealed for $1 million in donations for 2003. Indian Country Today was unable to determine the results of the advisory group’s deliberations for 2003, which were scheduled for April.
The fund apparently had $370,000 or so left for 2002, of which the advisory group recommended approving $315,805 for projects suggested by indigenous groups, and $50,000 for its Indigenous Projects Team. An additional $74,347 was recommended to fund nine other projects submitted by indigenous groups, subject to the receipt of a $93,653 donation by Denmark.
The group described the Voluntary Fund’s accomplishments this way: “throughout the decade, the group has been assisting indigenous communities and organizations in implementing a large number of small but effective grants at the local level. With very small grants ? these indigenous communities and organizations have carried out projects in the most remote areas of all regions of the world ? the potential indirect beneficiaries of the Fund’s grants are more than 350 million indigenous people.”
Maximum grant under the Fund is $50,000, but the paucity of donations has meant that grants have been more in the neighborhood of $10,000, the advisory group acknowledged.
For 2002, 43 grants totaling $390,152 were approved, with 15 in Africa ($134,500), 15 in The Americas ($120,455), 10 in Asia ($100,197) and three in Europe ($35,000). None went to indigenous projects in the United States or Canada, but two went to groups in Mexico.
The largest grant made in 2002 was $15,000 to the Russian Association of Indigenous People of the North, for capacity building for indigenous peoples’ human rights in the regional and federal legislation of Russia.
The earlier, 1985 Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations was started to finance indigenous attendance at relevant UN meetings. The Mashantucket Pequot Tribe contributed $1,000 to this fund in 1995.
