News of Note 4/25/25: Native CDFIs Advocate Economic Sovereignty, Indigenous Peoples and AI, UNPFII Week 1
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Standing Strong: Native CDFIs Mobilize to Protect Economic Sovereignty (Nonprofit Quarterly)
“CDFIs—especially Native CDFIs—serve as vital financial infrastructure in underresourced communities, offering access to capital where traditional banks have long failed to invest. Native CDFIs are embedded in tribal communities and uniquely positioned to understand and serve their financial, cultural, and historical contexts. From providing startup capital to Native entrepreneurs, to supporting homeownership, to offering credit building programs and financial literacy education, these organizations are the lifelines of tribal economies.”
AI, algorithms and Indigenous agency in Taiwan (East Asia Forum)
“Taiwan is the homeland of 16 officially recognised Indigenous tribal groups who have inhabited the island for thousands of years, each with distinct languages, cultures, spiritual traditions and practices. Despite their rich heritage, Indigenous peoples make up only about 2.5 per cent of Taiwan’s population today and have long faced marginalisation through colonisation and assimilation policies. In recent decades, Taiwan’s Indigenous communities have pushed for greater cultural and political recognition — efforts now complicated by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).”
The devastating legacy of Native boarding schools: ‘no way people can apologize it away’ (The Guardian)
“More than 400 Indian boarding schools operated on US soil. Vehicles for policies of assimilation, perhaps better described as cultural annihilation, the schools were brutal by design. Children were not allowed to speak their own language or practice religions and traditions. Discipline was harsh, comforts scarce. As described by Richard Henry Pratt, an army officer and champion of the project, the aim was to ‘kill the Indian in him, and save the man’.”
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Twenty-Fourth Session - Week 1
The United Nations calls on Indigenous Peoples' rights to be upheld at annual Forum in New York (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs)
Your guide to the 2025 UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (Grist)
Indigenous delegates at the U.N. raise alarm on isolated peoples in the Amazon (Mongabay)
‘We Are Nature’: Indigenous Women Come Together at the United Nations (Inside Climate News)
From Greenland to Ghana, Indigenous youth work for climate justice (Grist)
Indigenous Peoples sidelined in global climate fight, UN warns (UN News)
Webcasts: Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII) (UN Web TV)
More News
Growth in Indigenous businesses spurs new wave, but barriers remain (Australia Broadcasting Corporation)
More than 40 years on, the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act speaks to an enduring desire for a strong future (The Conversation)
Growth from the Grassroots: Brazil’s 21st Indigenous Free Land Camp (Amazon Watch)
Brazil's Indigenous leader Raoni says he is against drilling for oil in Amazon region (Reuters)
Tribes seek to overturn Corps permit for controversial Alaska gold-dredging project (ICT News)
Trump administration makes major cuts to Native American boarding school research projects (Associated Press)
Faith Investors Demand Accountability on Indigenous Rights ahead of Citi and Wells Fargo AGMs (Stand.Earth)
Indigenous Peoples and the Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative (Tallgrass Institute)
Native American group creates free online resource for tribal water law information and updates (KANW NPR Albuquerque)
In Wyoming, the Eastern Shoshone tribe decided to classify buffalo as wildlife. Here is why (Associated Press)
Every day is Earth Day for Indigenous people (ICT News)