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IWGIA - THE INDIGENOUS WORLD - 2010
tained by an ethnocidal legal framework that attempted to “incorporate” the ethnic minorities via their gradual “civilisation”. The country’s new model forms an unprecedented challenge for the state, which is now required – by means of an inherited institutional apparatus that was developed by the previous model – to produce public policies that are respectful of the socio-cultural diversity and adapted to the specific features of all social groups within the nation. Cultural barriers form the most complex challenge, as there is little understanding of social and cultural factors stemming from the knowledge, actions and practices of the indigenous peoples. The new political and legal context has favoured the involvement of indigenous representatives in arenas of power and in elected political posts, something unprecedented in the country’s history. The government institutions have been adapting to the new regulations, setting up offices to design and implement public policies aimed at the indigenous population, according to their specific responsibilities. Most of these bodies are headed by indigenous people. Despite these important achievements, however, progress in implementing these regulations has been limited and the practical results ambiguous, given the difficulties civil servants have in creating interculturally focused policies. To this must be added a lack of coordination among the indigenous movement itself and its failure to produce an agenda to guide the design of government policies. In addition, despite the government’s efforts to generate alternatives to the inherited model, it continues to focus on a developmentalist economic model based on natural resource exploitation. This creates conflicts with the population living in areas of high mining, logging, agro-industrial or geostrategic potential.
The Ministry of Popular Power for Indigenous Peoples Created in 2007 as the “guiding body and coordinator of government policies in indigenous affairs”,2 the Ministry for Indigenous Peoples (MINPI) is in fact being run simply to provide immediate assistance as a palliative to both current and structural problems. It is backed up by a torrent of financial resources but lacks any strategic vision with which