Independent Expert on minority issues

Increase the focus on minority communities in the context of poverty alleviation, development
and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

In every region of the world, there are minorities that are the poorest of the poor, often having faced long-standing discrimination, exclusion, denial of their basic rights, and sometimes violence. Minorities face high and disproportionate levels of poverty and the dynamics of that poverty are often more complex in nature for minority groups and defy the rationale of common denominator policies of poverty alleviation. Often minorities are neglected or excluded from efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Recognizing the urgent need to address the situations of minorities more fully in international and national efforts to alleviate poverty and achieve the Goals, in 2007 the Independent Expert decided to focus her second annual report “Minorities, Poverty and the Millennium Development Goals: Assessing Global Issues” on this subject.

The Independent Expert’s report highlights that targeted as well as mainstreamed approaches and policies are required to address the particular circumstances of poverty experienced by persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. Governments in designing, planning and implementing poverty alleviation and MDG policies, must give high priority to ensuring that disadvantaged minorities are considered in relation to their unique conditions of exclusion and discrimination, and consequent high levels of extreme and persistent poverty. To assist such efforts, in the contexts of MDG Country Reports and in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), Governments are urged to provide detailed consideration of the situations of minority groups and statistical data that helps to reveal the status of minorities in relation to other groups. The report of the Independent Expert and a supplementary review of MDG country reports and poverty reduction strategies help to reveal the situation of minorities and provide recommendations to States and development actors.