“We need to listen to each other” Sergei Kharyuchi, the Raipon president said today at the international conference “The Global Compact – Business and indigenous peoples” which held today at Public Chamber of Russian Federation. As he mentioned also the relationship of indigenous peoples and businesses today are particularly important and require urgent attention from both sides.

Geography of new industrial projects, oil and gas pipelines, mining of natural resources, construction of dams is actively moving farther and farther to the North, Siberia and the Far East. More and more territories traditionally inhabited by indigenous peoples, and used by them for traditional economic are now used for industrial projects. Russia has no clear and understandable legislation for relationship between indigenous communities and industrial companies. Still does not work the federal low about traditional lands, and companies do not oblige to use the damage assessment in their activity.

The Raipon president noted that there are many international practices and standards in that field like UN Declaration on the Indigenous Peoples' Rights, the World Bank guidelines as well as European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, UN Global Compact etc.

 That’s our aim today to study how to listen to each other, use the best practices of the cooperation, promote the experience at the regional, national and international levels. He also expressed the hope that the conference can be an important contribution to the development of partnership between indigenous communities and industrial companies

As he also mentioned the participation of the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the meeting confirm its relevance and importance for indigenous peoples and companies.

Info Center RAIPON