First declared by the United Nations in 1994, the International Day of Indigenous Peoples aims to strengthen international awareness and cooperation for solutions to the problems faced by Aboriginal people in areas such as human rights, development, the environment, education and health.
9 August marks the first meeting of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, held in Geneva in 1982. The International Day was established by the General Assembly in December 1994.
There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in some 90 countries around the world. They make up less than 5% of the world’s population, but account for 15% of the poorest. They speak an overwhelming majority of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages and represent 5,000 different cultures.
