German Government's Development Assistance and the Indigenous Peoples of Indonesian Borneo

Read the policy briefing in English and Bahasa Indonesia

This policy briefing outlines essential steps for the German Government to uphold its international human rights obligations towards the Indigenous Peoples of Indonesian Borneo, focusing on recognising and protecting their rights, examining the implementation gaps in development assistance, especially in land rights, and the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) and engagement of Indigenous Peoples in projects.

Inter-governmental and bilateral development agencies providing funds and technical assistance to developing countries have to tread a delicate path. On the one hand, they should uphold their own standards and due diligence, on the other hand, they need to respect host government laws, priorities, and policies. ‘Country-led’ development assistance is what most aspire to but when countries’ laws and procedures fail to respect human rights and uphold international conventions, then development agencies’ ‘safeguard policies’ are designed to ensure that, at the least, their interventions ‘do no harm’.

Key Points

Under International Human Rights Law, Indigenous Peoples have rights to their customary lands and territories, self-determination, exercise their customary law and give or withhold their Free, Prior and Informed Consent to measures that may affect their rights.

The German Government has ratified ILO Convention 169 to uphold these rights all around the world and both the Ministry of Development Assistance (BMZ) and the German Technical Assistance Agency (GIZ) have clear policies on how these rights must be upheld in overseas aid programmes.

The Indonesian Constitution also upholds these rights and, although a framing law on Indigenous Peoples’ rights is lacking, existing regulations allow them to prove their existence to regional governments, get recognition of their territories and register their customary forests.

The provincial government in West Kalimantan already recognises the existence of indigenous peoples and has recognised customary territories and forests. In Kapuas Hulu District some 800,0000 ha of indigenous lands have already been mapped and one customary forest has been recognised.

Although GIZ’s joint projects with the local governments in Kapuas Hulu, related to land use planning, conservation, and sustainable commodity production, overlap Dayak peoples’ lands, field investigations show that no measures have been undertaken to advance recognition of their rights.

Local NGOs and Indigenous Peoples’ organisations have called on BMZ to revise its approach so that its projects uphold, instead of marginalise, indigenous peoples in line with international human rights law and German Government policies, and build on the initiatives of the local governments and the efforts of the self-determining Dayak peoples