MARGINALISATION AND INEQUALITIES COURSE (OSISA)

Reflections from Indigenous Fellows Ivan and Yvette

Natural Justice’s Cape Town office held its monthly Skills and Information Sharing Session on 25 April 2016. At this session the Cape Town office’s two indigenous fellows, Ivan Vaalbooi and Yvette le Fleur, shared their reflections with the team about their learning at the Open Society’s Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) Marginalisation and Inequalities Course, which they attended in Johannesburg from 2 to 15 April.

This course aimed at providing knowledge around marginalisation and inequalities in Southern Africa, as well as the skills to use the knowledge gained when working with marginalised communities and inequalities in society. The knowledge is also useful in influencing policies and laws. It is said that inequality in Southern Africa is amongst the highest in the world. This course identified domains in which these inequalities, marginalisation and social exclusion manifest itself in this region. These domains are ethnicity, race, class and nationality, gender, people with disabilities, youth and identity, as well as indigenous peoples. It also looked at how marginalisation and inequalities could be addressed through social policy for the development of Southern Africa that has respect for the human rights of marginalised peoples under the domains of exclusion and inequalities mentioned above. The course brought a wide array of indigenous peoples, activists, academics and experts alike together in this discussion.

The knowledge gained at this course is important for Natural Justice as its work is focused on such marginalised indigenous and local communities in Southern Africa impacted by their human, environmental and related resource rights.

OSISA supports both Yvette and Ivan’s fellowship with Natural Justice for a period of one year. Yvette is a youth from the Griqua Khoisan community, West Coast of the Western Cape. Ivan is from the Khomani San community in the Kalahari, Northern Cape. They appreciated understanding how policy can be influenced to address the concerns many of their communities continue to face within South Africa’s period of continued decolonisation in post colonial and apartheid South Africa. Natural Justice wishes to congratulate OSISA on running a very successful workshop and for their continued support of Southern Africa’s most marginalized communities, in particular their Indigenous Rights Programme .

Yvette and Ivan is looking forward to incorporate these learnings in their current work around land restitution, access and benefit sharing and related intellectual property rights work in both South Africa and Namibia. 

Advanced Seminar on the Implementation and Promotion of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Namibia context

Lesle Jansen and Stephanie Booker of Natural Justice presented in Windhoek, Namibia on the topics of indigenous peoples and the environment; post-2015 UN development agenda as well as a situational analysis on extractives industries in Southern Africa. The presentations formed part of a four-day Advanced Seminar on the Implementation and Promotion of Indigenous Peoples Rights in the Namibia context. It was hosted by the University of Namibia in partnership with Open Society Foundation in Southern Africa (OSISA) and the International Labor Organization (ILO). 

The seminar was hosted from 01 – 04 July 2013 with about 30 participants from different sectors ranging from University of Namibia staff and students; civil society; media and government officials. The objectives to the seminar were:

Report on CT REDD+ Dialogue

The outcomes of the Rights-based REDD+ dialogue held in Cape Town in November 2012 have been released in a new report. The dialogue was hosted by Natural Justice with the support of the Heinrich Boell Foundation for Southern Africa and the Open Society Iniative for Southern Africa. Issues of concern regarding Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) activities on the African continent included the limited participation of forest-dependent communities, lack of appropriate REDD+ information, the diversity and complexity of safeguard standards which could increase communities reliance upon outsiders and experts, insufficient or lacking grievance and compliance mechanisms, limited gender awareness, that communities may not be aware of their rights, and that existing rights may not be enforced. 

Participants felt that REDD+ could offer opportunities to Indigenous peoples and local communities including enhanced participation and representation, the chance to call for greater rights especially regarding land tenure, and to seek independent monitoring of REDD+. A post-dialogue analysis of the potential of biocultural community protocols (BCPs) to address rights-based concerns within REDD+ raised during the dialogue suggests that BCPs may have the potential to address some of the key REDD+ challenges faced by forest-dependent communities. While BCPs are no panacea, they could enhance the capacity of communities to articulate their values, customs, and rights if they decide to engage with the REDD+ mechanism. 

The report can be downloaded here.

Major New Partnership - National Khoi-San Council and Natural Justice

NKC Chairperson Cecil Le Fleur
signing the MoU

Natural Justice has established a ground-breaking relationship with South Africa’s National Khoi-San Council (NKC), the government-convened body of representatives from Khoe and San communities of South Africa. Natural Justice’s Lesle Jansen, Laureen Manuel and Johan Lorenzen presented Natural Justice’s proposed partnership with the NKC, which the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA) has agreed to support, to the Council from 6-7 November, 2012, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. A memorandum of understanding committing both parties to the completion of the proposed activities was signed between Natural Justice and NKC on November 7, 2012.  

Natural Justice will support NKC to achieve three objectives through the partnership:

• Support the Council in having meaningful consultations amongst Council communities, members and with government;

• Engage in legal training for the NKC around the National Traditional Affairs Bill and its continued negotiations;

• Consult with Khoe and San communities to draft a self-governance model based on the human rights issues set out in the UN Mission report recommendations of 2005. 

The initial partnership is for 12 months but it is hoped that this will be the foundation of an enduring relationship.