International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples 2024

Background: An essential dietary strategy to address the rapidly increasing risk of the double burden of malnutrition among indigenous populations around the world is to improve nutritional and food diversity utilizing varieties of traditional plant-based foods. Objectives: The objective of this research was to identify wild edible plants (WEPs) frequently consumed by the Semai and analyze their proximate and mineral composition to improve the adequacy of the local population's nutritional intake.

This content addresses SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and SDG-10 (Reduced inequalities), aligns with the World Health Organization’s goal to promote universal health coverage, and aims to help close the health treatment gap that keeps remote, underserved communities from accessing needed quality health services.

This chapter aligns with UN SDG 3 discussing the initial government mitigation efforts and actions at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in two different Maasai regions. The chapter highlights the contrasting political environments in Kenya and Tanzania and how each impacted the Indigenous East African community. While acknowledging the significance of modern information and communication technologies, it also offers a glimpse of unique internal culturally relevant messaging strategies adopted within the global governance networks.

This chapter aligns with several SDG goals. Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being: the chapter discusses the poor health status and health disparities faced by Indigenous populations globally (higher rates of infant mortality, maternal mortality, malnutrition etc.) and advocates for targeted policy responses and improved access to healthcare services. Goal 10: the chapter discusses the social, economic, and political marginalization of Indigenous peoples worldwide, describing how Indigenous communities are often denied self-determination, face ongoing loss of land and resources, and experience systemic discrimination. Goal 15: Life on Land: the chapter discusses the close relationship between the health of Indigenous peoples and the health of their traditional lands and ecosystems. It highlights the importance of biodiversity conservation and the need to recognize the rights of Indigenous communities to their ancestral territories and natural resources.

The Accord comprises nine key principles that guide Aboriginal health research in South Australia: priorities, involvement, partnership, respect, communication, reciprocity, ownership, control, and knowledge translation and exchange. It provides a voice for Aboriginal communities to inform researchers on how they would like health research to be conducted in their communities. Consistently applying the nine principles of the Accord will increase the impact and benefit of health research for Aboriginal people in Australia.