ILC: Indigenous peoples’ rights to lands, territories and resources (Synthesis Paper)

The International Land Coalition (ILC) seeks to secure equitable access to land and resources for the rural poor through advocacy, knowledge management, networking, capacity building, and dialogue. Indigenous peoples comprise more than 370 million people worldwide. It is estimated that they constitute approximately 5% of the world's population, but make up 15% of the world's poor and about one-third of the world's 900 million extremely poor rural people (DESA, 2009: 21). Indigenous peoples have strong spiritual, cultural, social and economic relationship with their traditional lands, but their land rights are often the most precarious.