Indigenous peoples of Africa  

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The indigenous people of Africa are groups of people native to a specific region; people who lived there before colonists or settlers arrived, defined new borders, and began to occupy the land. This definition applies to all indigenous groups, whether inside or outside of Africa. Although the vast majority of Native Africans can be considered to be "indigenous" in the sense that they originated from that continent and nowhere else (like all Homo sapiens), identity as an "indigenous people" is in the modern application more restrictive. Not every African ethnic group claims identification under these terms. Groups and communities who do claim this recognition are those who by a variety of historical and environmental circumstances have been placed outside of the dominant state systems. Their traditional practices and land claims often have come into conflict with the objectives and policies promulgated by governments, companies, and surrounding dominant societies.

Marginalization, along with the desire to recognize and protect their collective and human rights, and to maintain the continuity of their individual cultures, has led many to seek identification as indigenous peoples, in the contemporary global sense of the term.

See also

• African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
• Black people
• Hizetjitwa Indigenous Peoples' Organization (2007), an organisation operating in Namibia and Angola
• List of ethnic groups of Africa
• List of indigenous peoples of Africa
• Recent African origin of modern humans
• Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA)
• United Nations Environment Programme
• United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)