Key Messages and an Agenda for Action

Indigenous peoples make up perhaps the largest disadvantaged group in Latin America.1 It is estimated that there are 28–34 million indigenous peoples in the region, or roughly 10 per cent of the total population.2 The failure to implement policies that direct sufficient resources and opportunities to this group who are among the poorest of the poor goes some way towards explaining the slow rate of poverty reduction in the region. Even good policies have not benefited all of the poor equally. Some historically excluded groups such as indigenous peoples have yet to benefit from the many poverty reduction initiatives that have been implemented in the region over the past decade, either because the programmes have failed to reach them, are of poor quality or inadequately address the composite causes of their poverty.