Norilsk Nickel and the Federal Agency for Nationalities (FAN) signed an additional agreement on interaction and cooperation to support the indigenous peoples of the North on Friday. The ceremony took place at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
The document was signed by the head of FAN Russia Igor Barinov and the vice president for federal and regional programs of Norilsk Nickel Andrey Grachev. In particular, a list of events to be implemented in 2024 was approved. "The additional agreement contains both new events and those that have already proven themselves," Andrey Grachev noted after the signing.
One of the projects being implemented jointly is the School of Public Diplomacy. Its goal is to train leaders and specialists from among the indigenous peoples of the North to work at UNESCO and UN platforms. "Our plan takes into account that the Decade of the Languages of the Indigenous Minorities of the North, declared by UNESCO and the UN,continues," Grachev said. "We perfectly understand that language is a sign of the existence of a particular ethnic group and we attach great importance to this, and in this case FAN acts as an expert and tells us what is relevant." He also noted that Norilsk Nickel pays great attention to the publication of textbooks, primers, and almanacs so that the native language can be preserved.
As Igor Barinov noted, the indigenous peoples of the North live in remote and hard-to-reach places, with harsh climatic conditions. "The state guarantees only basic standards, and here large industrial companies come to the rescue, which,within the framework of their corporate agreements with the northern peoples, are much more prompt and flexible," he explained. "They effectively and promptly close the arising acute issues."
According to him, the current agreement contains events that have already proven themselves. Thus, together with Norilsk Nickel, two forums on state-corporate partnership were held. They lay the foundation for the basic standards of interaction between the state, private business, and the indigenous peoples of the North. "By our practice of interaction with the peoples of the North, we largely break down the stereotypes that have developed in the world about the impossibility of the normal existence of communities of indigenous peoples and resource-extracting companies in the territories where they intersect. Russian practice shows that this is possible," said Igor Barinov.
