Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM)

indigenous populations than in those without, not
only for the indigenous peoples but also for nonindigenous
groups living in the area. 170
the dire situations that indigenous peoples face
in Latin America is also evident in developmental
indicators other than simple poverty rates. According
to a study by the International Labour Organization,
members of indigenous communities in Latin American
earn approximately half of the income earned by the
average non-minority citizen. 171 Such a statistic has
obvious implications for indigenous peoples’ access
to basic resources and services, including food,
shelter, and healthcare, and underscores why the
poverty rates among indigenous populations are so
high. Indigenous peoples are also behind in indicators
of overall health. Malnutrition rates, for example, are
twice as high among the indigenous population than
the majority ethnic groups. 172 unfortunately, as the
overall population in most Latin American countries
has seen progress toward economic development in
recent years, this does not seem to be the case for
indigenous groups. In Guatemala, the overall poverty
rate has fallen almost thirty percentage points in the
past twenty years, while the indigenous poverty rate
has remained essentially the same. Some countries,
like Chile, have seen poverty rates for indigenous
peoples fall at the same pace as those for the general
population, but they are the exception rather than
the rule in Latin America. 173
In Asia, another continent with significant
indigenous populations, poverty rates for those
indigenous peoples have been rapidly falling. In China,
for example, the overall poverty rate has declined
from 84% in 1981 to just 16% in 2005, and the rates
among indigenous populations have actually fallen
even more drastically than those for the majority
Han ethnic group, though the overall percentage of
indigenous poor remains higher than that of poor
Han Chinese. Current estimates put the poverty rate
among the indigenous population in China at 5.4%,
by far the lowest among countries with a significant
number of indigenous groups. 174 Vietnam and India
have seen similar, though less extreme, progress,
with poverty rates among indigenous peoples falling
about 20% to current levels of 52.3% in Vietnam and
43.8% in India. An analysis of the statistics for Vietnam
shows, however, that some changes in policy are
necessary; while the poverty rate among indigenous
peoples has fallen by about 20%, the poverty rate for
the majority ethnic population fell over 40% in the
same period. 175 While it is unclear whether declines
in poverty rates mean that indigenous populations
are actually doing better overall or, as this figure
suggest, that there are other areas in which they still
lag behind the majority ethnic group, these statistics
In many of the world’s largest developing nations, the indigenous
poverty rate is higher than that of the general population.
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