complementary survey on indigenous households (Encuesta Complementaria de Pueblos Indígenas—ECPI) carried out by INDEC between 2004 and 2005. The findings based on the ECPI estimation suggests that 36 percent of indigenous people are between 0-14 years old, a 58.6 percent between 15-64 years old and 5.5 percent of 65 and older. Moreover, 66.8 percent of indigenous people live in indigenous communities.<sup>24</sup> Several barriers, both physical and mental, prevent indigenous communities from accessing conventional health care services. An important number of indigenous families lack means of transportation to reach the far off facilities, some due to inability to pay for the journey. Furthermore, indigenous individuals are often more comfortable with their communities own traditional medical care and many have experiences of disrespectful or discriminating treatment in public health care centers. Health seeking behavior of indigenous women is additionally influenced by strong gender norms, which define reproductive issues as taboo and limit women decision-making power. The fact that many women experience the triple burden of reproductive, domestic and productive labor explains why they often have a higher morbidity rate than men.<sup>25</sup> Other non-income poverty measures show that it is very difficult to obtain precise information about indigenous peoples and communities from the 2001 Census. Access to paved roads, water electricity, etc. cannot be separated out for different ethnic groups using publicly available data. The indicators presented below are from the departments where the indigenous communities involved in the Indigenous Community Development Project are located. In cases the community spans over more than one department, the indicators are calculated as an average of them.

Poverty is broad and deep among indigenous people. Almost a quarter (23.5 percent compared to 14.3 percent for non-indigenous) of households counted as indigenous is deprived in terms of basic needs. In three Provinces (Chaco, Formosa and Salta) a significant majority (57-75 percent) of indigenous households live in poverty. Comparison of indigenous and the non-indigenous households show clearly that the indigenous households are worse off than the average.

The health status and other areas of indigenous peoples’ well-being are not well known.<sup>26</sup> In the absence of health statistics broken down by ethnicity, only rough estimations based on regional patterns and poverty figures can be given on the health conditions of indigenous peoples in Argentina. The census results highlight two significant 24 People who share a territory or a common habitat in rural or urban areas.

25 To address any of these problems, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has been implementing another Bank financing Project, the Maternal Child Health Insurance Program (Plan Nacer) in nine of the poorest Provinces, at the Northern region. The first phase of the insurance health program had a particular subcomponent that addressed the health condition of Indigenous communities through the developing of tailor-made culturally-sensitive health plans. The extension of the Plan Nacer to all the country Provinces will allow it to address these problems in all of those that meet the screening criteria, This Project will contributes to improve the access of Indigenous people to ten selected public health interventions.

> 26 Argentina: Essential Public Function Project.

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