NCA and Indigenous people in Guatemala

Background:
The background for the visit to Guatemala in August 2008, was a request made by NCA’s Regional Office late 2007, seeking advisory and input to a process of strengthening NCA’s work towards indigenous peoples of Guatemala. A significant part of the current NCA partners in the country run projects where indigenous peoples are highly represented among the rights holders. However, NCA does not have any strategy defining specific objectives related to the improvement of indigenous peoples’ situation in Guatemala.

Purpose/ Objective:
The purpose of the visit was first and foremost to get an insight in the current work towards indigenous peoples in the country, and on the basis of meetings and conversations with selected partners, NCA staff and right holders in the projects, to provide recommendations regarding a strengthening of and a more conscious approach to the work with indigenous peoples in the country from 2009. There was also a wish from the office to get contributions on the inclusion of the IP issue on a longer term, that is for the planning of a new 5-year NCA global strategy document for the period 2011-2015.

Methodology:
Meeting at RO: introduction from RO on GTM portfolio, brief history and the present work, with focus on indigenous issues. Meetings with most relevant partners in IP context (CIEDEG, Madre Selva, UKUXBE and Pop Noj). Meeting with Norwegian Embassy if possible. Discussion with RO on agenda and objectives and participants for the Brazil visit. Project visits/conversations with right holders/target groups in the projects are important to get an impression on how the partners are working in the field.
 
Key Findings:
The Maya population is to be considered a “cross cutting” target group in the NCA project portfolio. In a short time perspective,the main challenge should be to make a systematic effort on strengthening the consciousness of the rights and issues for the indigenous rights holders in the diversity of thematic areas that the projects are into.
Considering the forthcoming planning of a new country plan for Guatemala, this will be an occasion to decide whether one wishes to keep it at this level – as a cross cutting issue, with a conscious indigenous rights based approach – or if, in addition to this, one wishes to develop a more dedicated work with indigenous people on one or more specific issues.An important consideration in this context must be to consider thoroughly how big ambitions one can have with the limited financial resources that NCA provides. An eventual decision on making Indigenous People a thematic priority – within the areas “right to natural resources within the indigenous territories” and “participation and leadership promotion”, which currently seems to me as the most evident and relevant areas for NCA – should be based on such a discussion.In this context, to make the NCA contribution have a greater impact than the financial resources should indicate, it is important that the office be updated on the work of other organisations, including the Embassy, and thus seeks to find opportunities for synergetic effects and a complementary contribution on specific issues. One should therefore analyse in what area(s) NCA and partners have the ability and capacity to make real contribution, and be very careful not to grasp too much. This analysis should also seek to identify the areas in which NCA can support and contribute together with other organisations. What did not become very clear to me during my trip was how the partners work to channel the rights holders’ knowledge into concrete actions of demanding rights. Preparation of the rights holders on how to access the public spaces and to negotiate and demand the full exercise of their rights in the society is an important part of working with a rights based approach. To make right holders achieve real changes, the promotion of knowledge must go hand in hand with an effort to analyse political
opportunities and facilitate access to the public sphere. This is valid for all the projects and should be a general concern for NCA to follow up.A positive factor that also contributes to a belief in the potential of a good development is the NCA staff itself and their commitment, competence and interest in carrying out a process for a more consistent work related to indigenous peoples.

Recommendations:
The following are main recommendations for the process ahead:
i) NCA should strengthen the indigenous rights perspective as a cross-cutting issue in the current portfolio
A great number of the projects in the current portfolio - within diverse areas as gender, HIV/AIDS, sustainable agriculture - have indigenous people, more specifically Mayas, as target groups and rights holders. However, rights issues related to indigenous people are in several cases at the present not being handled with any specific attention.
It should be an overall ambition for NCA to guarantee that capacity building of partners on indigenous rights related to the different projects will be carried out.
ii) Use of certain partners as a resource for other partners
The potential of using certain partner’s expertise in order to strengthen the work of others should be explored. For instance, are the new partners UKUXBE and Pop Noj willing to, and qualified to, contributing to a strengthening of the indigenous rights perspective towards the partners working with HIV/AIDS? Gender? And is CIEDEG willing to make an effort to develop it’s work into a more rights based approach – with input both on indigenous rights in general, and more specifically on the water issue?
iii)  Capacity building of NCA staff
- NCA should consider inviting partners to capacitate own staff at the Guatemala office. Although the consciousness
about indigenous issues and specific rights among the staff seems to be fairly high, it would be convenient to invite partners to capacitate staff on specific issues. Also external resource persons could be used for this purpose.
- As part of a process of strengthening the work on indigenous peoples, an issue of great importance is the language. Although partner organisations communicate in Spanish, a great part of the right holders in many of the projects only speak their indigenous language. Having one of the programme officers at the office speaking Quiché (or eventually another main Maya language) should be an ambition for NCA Guatemala.Together, this would contribute to an improvement in NCA’s ability to conduct a project follow up of high quality, and also make them more prepared for future planning of strategies towards indigenous people in their work. It would also be a signal
from NCA that the partners’ knowledge is acknowledged, and would contribute to a more balanced partnership.
iv)  NCA should act as a facilitator of spaces for discussions and network building
Without defining the agenda for the indigenous organisations or movement, NCA should seek to facilitate spaces for discussions and sharing of information on indigenous issues, both for indigenous organisations and for other organisations working with indigenous people as rights holders. Promotion of seminars, meetings and other events for discussion and sharing of information are valuable in themselves, but might as well have a function of building or strengthening networks of organisations working with indigenous issues.
Regarding the contents of such events, there should be openness from the office towards the partners on what are their major concerns, assuring dialogue with and participation from partners in the planning of these events.
It might as well be relevant for NCA to promote such spaces in collaboration with other development agencies or for instance the Embassy, thus also including Guatemalan organisations from outside the NCA portfolio.
v) Access to public sphere for the rights holders
NCA should on a broader basis, together with partners, see to what extent the projects are empowering rights holders not only to know their rights but also to actually become agents of transformation, able to enter public spaces and processes of negotiations and advocating.
This might as well be a topic for the whole portfolio, not only that regarding indigenous people.
vi)  Review of partners’ relevance in the portfolio
In the light of the process on new global strategy and new Country plan 2011-2015, it is also of great importance that the current portfolio is reviewed simultaneously. For instance, as I see it, the two new partners fall slightly outside the current strategy on Guatemala, but on the other hand are “justified” by the recent attempt to strengthen the work towards indigenous peoples. In this case, their future partnership with NCA must be considered in the light of the forthcoming discussions on a new global strategy/Country plan for Guatemala, and the relevance of their projects (and expertise) for this new strategy.
The same goes for CIEDEG, which clearly needs to review their strategy into a more rights based approach.
NCA should in this context seek to be oriented on the diversity of indigenous organisations, and also be open to eventually identify new resource partners if considered needed, in line with the definition of a new strategy.
vii) On a longer term
Considering the forthcoming process on elaborating a new global strategy for the period 2011-2015, it is important to reflect on how to guarantee a stronger effort on the promotion of indigenous rights within a new Country plan for Guatemala, and maybe as well for the Regional plan for Central America, referring to the same period.
• One of the biggest challenges currently related to indigenous rights in the region, as in many other parts of the world, is the management of natural resources in the indigenous territories, connected to the exploration of these by both public and private actors/institutions. This in many cases happens at the cost of the indigenous population’s interests, and in extreme cases it is threatening the livelihood of the indigenous population. A possible approach to this challenge for NCA could be to build upon the experiences on working with the right to water. Both because NCA itself already defines this area as a thematic priority, and also because NCA Guatemala has a very strong partner on the issue: Madre Selva, which works specifically with this issue. Even if the discussions on a new global strategy officially haven’t started yet, it seems probable that the issues of environment/climate change and poor peoples’ access to and management of natural resources will be central in the forthcoming strategy process. These are issues that are central in several countries and regions where NCA is working with indigenous and traditional people, and a stronger focus on efforts done within this field would contribute to create e greater common momentum for this thematic related to indigenous peoples on a general level.
• Through the inclusion of the two new partners Ukuxbe and Pop Noj, the issue of participation and leadership stands
out as a major issue in the current work towards indigenous peoples. These are highly relevant issues when seeking strategies to improve the situation of the country’s indigenous population. Although relatively small, these two organisations also seem able to carry out an important work within this field.
But again, it is important that the office thoroughly discuss how broad ambitions one should have with the limited resources available and how one best can use the resources to provide a support which might have a real impact on indigenous people’s situation in the country.
viii) Plan of action
As a complement to the already submitted 2009 activity plan for NCA’s Guatemala Office, the office should elaborate a separate document on how it intends to follow up the recommendations from this report