Indigenous Peoples (IPs) play a critical but often overlooked and misunderstood role in global development. As culturally distinct communities and stewards of a large share of the world’s natural resources, IPs have important contributions to make to the sustainable development agenda. IPs are also typically vulnerable to very high levels of poverty. Despite representing just 6 percent of the global population, the estimated 476 million IPs worldwide account for nearly 19 percent of all people living in extreme poverty today. This means that better understanding IPs and their needs should be a priority for global development – and that efforts to eliminate poverty will be unsuccessful unless they focus on and prioritize issues facing IPs. Such challenges are particularly salient in the Philippines, a country where nearly 9 percent of the population are IPs, and the government fully recognizes IP rights in its constitution and national legislation. Yet determining or analyzing the extent and composition of the country’s IP population has long been difficult, since much of the data collected for official statistics is not disaggregated by ethnicity, and for the IP-related data that does exist, there is a lack of coherence between the various datasets maintained across the government. While the limited available evidence suggests that IPs remain among the poorest, most vulnerable, and marginalized populations in the country, there has been scant research exploring the relationship and intersectionality between poverty and ethnicity, or on the inequalities that exist within and among different ethnic groups in the country. The key constraint preventing a better understanding of IPs in the Philippines is limited data and information. This is a global problem, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 has triggered a sustained call for better statistics on IPs. Since then, the Philippines has made some important strides in recognizing IPs and collecting data, but significant gaps remain. Data collection is challenging, and IP statistics are complex due to factors such as topography and logistical difficulties, language barriers, discrimination, conflict, and the tendency of IPs not to self-identify due to fear of stigma. These challenges are compounded by the lack of systematic data collection, harmonization, and standardization of methodologies and common approaches – or even standard ethnicity definitions and variables – across government agencies. Beyond the census, few national household surveys attempt to track IPs, and most do not include any ethnicity variables. Given these issues, IPs are nearly invisible in the country’s official public data. This absence of comprehensive data leads to a lack of understanding of IPs’ socio-demographic profiles and the extent of disadvantages they face in the Philippines. Moreover, without proper data, it is nearly impossible to propose accurate poverty reduction strategies or to improve IP targeting for social programs. It is into this context that the No Data, No Story report enters, seeking to help fill some of the data gaps and offering new analysis on the country’s IP populations, their demographics, ancestral domains, and the interactions between land, conflict, and poverty

No Data, No Story: Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines

Resource Key: MBMB4KMH

Document Type: Report

Creator:

Author:

  • World Bank

Creators Name: {mb_resource_zotero_creatorsname}

Place: Washington D.C.

Institution: World Bank

Date: May 2024

Language: en

Indigenous Peoples (IPs) play a critical but often overlooked and misunderstood role in global development. As culturally distinct communities and stewards of a large share of the world’s natural resources, IPs have important contributions to make to the sustainable development agenda. IPs are also typically vulnerable to very high levels of poverty. Despite representing just 6 percent of the global population, the estimated 476 million IPs worldwide account for nearly 19 percent of all people living in extreme poverty today. This means that better understanding IPs and their needs should be a priority for global development – and that efforts to eliminate poverty will be unsuccessful unless they focus on and prioritize issues facing IPs. Such challenges are particularly salient in the Philippines, a country where nearly 9 percent of the population are IPs, and the government fully recognizes IP rights in its constitution and national legislation. Yet determining or analyzing the extent and composition of the country’s IP population has long been difficult, since much of the data collected for official statistics is not disaggregated by ethnicity, and for the IP-related data that does exist, there is a lack of coherence between the various datasets maintained across the government. While the limited available evidence suggests that IPs remain among the poorest, most vulnerable, and marginalized populations in the country, there has been scant research exploring the relationship and intersectionality between poverty and ethnicity, or on the inequalities that exist within and among different ethnic groups in the country. The key constraint preventing a better understanding of IPs in the Philippines is limited data and information. This is a global problem, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 has triggered a sustained call for better statistics on IPs. Since then, the Philippines has made some important strides in recognizing IPs and collecting data, but significant gaps remain. Data collection is challenging, and IP statistics are complex due to factors such as topography and logistical difficulties, language barriers, discrimination, conflict, and the tendency of IPs not to self-identify due to fear of stigma. These challenges are compounded by the lack of systematic data collection, harmonization, and standardization of methodologies and common approaches – or even standard ethnicity definitions and variables – across government agencies. Beyond the census, few national household surveys attempt to track IPs, and most do not include any ethnicity variables. Given these issues, IPs are nearly invisible in the country’s official public data. This absence of comprehensive data leads to a lack of understanding of IPs’ socio-demographic profiles and the extent of disadvantages they face in the Philippines. Moreover, without proper data, it is nearly impossible to propose accurate poverty reduction strategies or to improve IP targeting for social programs. It is into this context that the No Data, No Story report enters, seeking to help fill some of the data gaps and offering new analysis on the country’s IP populations, their demographics, ancestral domains, and the interactions between land, conflict, and poverty

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