title: An indigenous voice at WIPO

authors: Toki, Valmaine

abstract: The demands for the recognition of rights for Indigenous peoples over time has led to the emergence of a common body of opinion based on long standing principles of international human rights law and policy. The existence of these rights for Indigenous people is unequivocal. The road to recognition has been arduous. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [the Declaration] is the only international instrument that views Indigenous rights through an indigenous lens, crystallising many of the fundamental human rights of Indigenous peoples. The Declaration provides a framework and benchmark for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues [the Permanent Forum].
This note reviews the background to the Declaration, and examines the role of the Permanent Forum, highlighting the connection between the two with a case study on intellectual property rights. It also offers comments about the future of Indigenous rights and the role of the Permanent Forum in promoting them.

text: An indigenous voice at WIPO The demands for the recognition of rights for Indigenous peoples over time has led to the emergence of a common body of opinion based on long standing principles of international human rights law and policy. The existence of these rights for Indigenous people is unequivocal. The road to recognition has been arduous. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [the Declaration] is the only international instrument that views Indigenous rights through an indigenous lens, crystallising many of the fundamental human rights of Indigenous peoples. The Declaration provides a framework and benchmark for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues [the Permanent Forum].
This note reviews the background to the Declaration, and examines the role of the Permanent Forum, highlighting the connection between the two with a case study on intellectual property rights. It also offers comments about the future of Indigenous rights and the role of the Permanent Forum in promoting them.

year: 2013

title: The Struggle For Success: A Socio-Cultural Perspective on the French Marist Priests and their Māori Mission 1838-1867

authors: Harman, Sandy Angela

subjects: missionaries

abstract: The nineteenth-century Roman Catholic missionary endeavour in New Zealand had its origins in a society of priests from Lyon, known as the Marists. The Marists’ mission has been deemed a failure due to its ongoing financial problems, its reputation for having abandoned Māori adherents, and its less visible impact compared to the Anglican Mission. This thesis examines the challenges facing the pioneer Marist priests in New Zealand and asks the question: was the Mission indeed a failure? The answer lies in the correspondence of the French Marists themselves, a largely untapped historical source which contains a different view of early New Zealand contact and religious history from that of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) evangelists. ‘The Struggle for Success’ consists of three parts examining the Mission before, during and after the pioneer phase. The first describes the Marists’ early influences and religious formation in France, which serve to elucidate the missionaries’ raison d’être and provide an historical context for the Mission. It is also an important attempt at a prosopography of men whose early lives were barely documented, and whose connection with contemporaneous and historical France, and the Lyon area in particular, would greatly affect the missions in Oceania. The subsequent comparative mission history in Part Two highlights the difficulties and conflicts that affected the progress of the Marist Māori Mission in New Zealand compared with other Christian missions in Oceania, notably the CMS in New Zealand and the early Marists in Wallis, Futuna, Tonga and New Caledonia. It describes the factors leading to the alleged failure of the Marist Māori Mission and demonstrates that hardships and struggle were the common lot of pioneer missionaries in Oceania. But the Marists on the Māori Mission had the added obstacles of being Frenchmen in a British colony, ascetics surrounded by and dependent on commerce, and dutiful religious under the authority of overburdened bishops. Irish immigration into New Zealand distorted the original aims of the French Marist missionaries, and Māori politico-religious initiatives to combat the devastating impacts of British colonialism essentially quashed Marist hopes that Māori would become a decidedly Catholic people. Having considered the obstacles to success, the thesis discusses in Part Three how the pioneer Marists understood success and conversion. In retrospect, it is clear that the missionaries underestimated the tenacity of early Māori catechists, but the CMS in New Zealand and Marists throughout Oceania were equally insensible in this respect. Finally the thesis offers an assessment of the mission’s overall success taking into account the revival of the Marist Māori Mission in the late 1870s and its continuation into the twentieth century. The social, cultural and political complexities of missionary endeavour demand a less rigid evaluation of missions than has been previously offered; and success and failure are problematic terms for the pioneer Marist Māori Mission because evangelisation was and is a work in progress.

text: The Struggle For Success: A Socio-Cultural Perspective on the French Marist Priests and their Māori Mission 1838-1867 The nineteenth-century Roman Catholic missionary endeavour in New Zealand had its origins in a society of priests from Lyon, known as the Marists. The Marists’ mission has been deemed a failure due to its ongoing financial problems, its reputation for having abandoned Māori adherents, and its less visible impact compared to the Anglican Mission. This thesis examines the challenges facing the pioneer Marist priests in New Zealand and asks the question: was the Mission indeed a failure? The answer lies in the correspondence of the French Marists themselves, a largely untapped historical source which contains a different view of early New Zealand contact and religious history from that of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) evangelists. ‘The Struggle for Success’ consists of three parts examining the Mission before, during and after the pioneer phase. The first describes the Marists’ early influences and religious formation in France, which serve to elucidate the missionaries’ raison d’être and provide an historical context for the Mission. It is also an important attempt at a prosopography of men whose early lives were barely documented, and whose connection with contemporaneous and historical France, and the Lyon area in particular, would greatly affect the missions in Oceania. The subsequent comparative mission history in Part Two highlights the difficulties and conflicts that affected the progress of the Marist Māori Mission in New Zealand compared with other Christian missions in Oceania, notably the CMS in New Zealand and the early Marists in Wallis, Futuna, Tonga and New Caledonia. It describes the factors leading to the alleged failure of the Marist Māori Mission and demonstrates that hardships and struggle were the common lot of pioneer missionaries in Oceania. But the Marists on the Māori Mission had the added obstacles of being Frenchmen in a British colony, ascetics surrounded by and dependent on commerce, and dutiful religious under the authority of overburdened bishops. Irish immigration into New Zealand distorted the original aims of the French Marist missionaries, and Māori politico-religious initiatives to combat the devastating impacts of British colonialism essentially quashed Marist hopes that Māori would become a decidedly Catholic people. Having considered the obstacles to success, the thesis discusses in Part Three how the pioneer Marists understood success and conversion. In retrospect, it is clear that the missionaries underestimated the tenacity of early Māori catechists, but the CMS in New Zealand and Marists throughout Oceania were equally insensible in this respect. Finally the thesis offers an assessment of the mission’s overall success taking into account the revival of the Marist Māori Mission in the late 1870s and its continuation into the twentieth century. The social, cultural and political complexities of missionary endeavour demand a less rigid evaluation of missions than has been previously offered; and success and failure are problematic terms for the pioneer Marist Māori Mission because evangelisation was and is a work in progress.

year: 2010

title: Farmer participation and irrigation performance: A case study of Nam Thach Han irrigation system, Vietnam

authors: Tran, Hanh Loi

subjects: Participation

abstract: This thesis assesses the determinants of farmer participation in irrigation management and the impact of participation on irrigation quality and agricultural production in the Nam Thach Han irrigation system, Vietnam. Many governments have attempted to increase farmer participation in irrigation system management through participatory irrigation management (PIM). This approach aims to reduce government financial burdens, improve the quality of irrigation management, and in turn, enhance agricultural production. However, the results of PIM have been mixed and the factors affecting its success or failure remain a topic of much debate. 
Using survey data from 391 households of 11 agricultural cooperatives (ACs) in the Nam Thach Han irrigation system,  this study examines (i) the factors that influence farmer participation, (ii) the impact of collective action on irrigation quality (sufficiency and timeliness), and (iii) the impact of irrigation quality on rice farming technical efficiency, while controlling for environmental factors. 
Four main findings emerge from this thesis. We find that (i) institutional factors at the AC level such as inclusion in the PIM project, information transparency and democratic decision-making have a positive impact on participation, but sharing second-level canals between ACs reduces participation; (ii) higher participation rates are associated with a higher probability of receiving sufficient and timely irrigation; (iii) plots and households receiving sufficient water are more likely to attain higher levels of technical efficiency and; (iv) use of household-level data can provide approximately unbiased estimates of technical efficiency provided environmental factors are controlled for.
This thesis provides several contributions to the literature. Participative approaches have been widely adopted in Vietnam but this is the first empirical study to use econometric models to examine the determinants of participation and the effect of collective action on irrigation quality. This is achieved using an improved set of participation indices, constructed using principal component analysis. This thesis also provides the first analysis of the effect of sufficient and timely irrigation on rice farming technical efficiency while controlling for plot-specific environmental factors.

text: Farmer participation and irrigation performance: A case study of Nam Thach Han irrigation system, Vietnam This thesis assesses the determinants of farmer participation in irrigation management and the impact of participation on irrigation quality and agricultural production in the Nam Thach Han irrigation system, Vietnam. Many governments have attempted to increase farmer participation in irrigation system management through participatory irrigation management (PIM). This approach aims to reduce government financial burdens, improve the quality of irrigation management, and in turn, enhance agricultural production. However, the results of PIM have been mixed and the factors affecting its success or failure remain a topic of much debate. 
Using survey data from 391 households of 11 agricultural cooperatives (ACs) in the Nam Thach Han irrigation system,  this study examines (i) the factors that influence farmer participation, (ii) the impact of collective action on irrigation quality (sufficiency and timeliness), and (iii) the impact of irrigation quality on rice farming technical efficiency, while controlling for environmental factors. 
Four main findings emerge from this thesis. We find that (i) institutional factors at the AC level such as inclusion in the PIM project, information transparency and democratic decision-making have a positive impact on participation, but sharing second-level canals between ACs reduces participation; (ii) higher participation rates are associated with a higher probability of receiving sufficient and timely irrigation; (iii) plots and households receiving sufficient water are more likely to attain higher levels of technical efficiency and; (iv) use of household-level data can provide approximately unbiased estimates of technical efficiency provided environmental factors are controlled for.
This thesis provides several contributions to the literature. Participative approaches have been widely adopted in Vietnam but this is the first empirical study to use econometric models to examine the determinants of participation and the effect of collective action on irrigation quality. This is achieved using an improved set of participation indices, constructed using principal component analysis. This thesis also provides the first analysis of the effect of sufficient and timely irrigation on rice farming technical efficiency while controlling for plot-specific environmental factors.

year: 2020