Welcome to the United Nations
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Addressee: UNESCO, Member States
Paragraph Number: 18
Session: 18 (2019)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum thanks the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for its efforts as the lead United Nations agency for the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages. The Forum recommends that UNESCO prepare a strategic outcome document of the 2019 International Year. The Forum invites Member States to consider discussing the outcome document at the General Assembly.
Area of Work: Indigenous Languages, Culture
Addressee: Member States; UN entities
Paragraph Number: 80
Session: 22 (2023)
Full Text:
The inclusion and full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples, as beneficiaries and partners in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, while avoiding negative impacts on their rights are essential. The Permanent Forum recommends that States and relevant United Nations entities cooperate with Indigenous Peoples to fully consider their situations during the midpoint review at the Sustainable Development Goals Summit in 2023, including in the preparations at the high-level political forum on sustainable development.
Area of Work: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Enhanced Participation at the UN
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 27
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum recommends that Member States adopt legislation acknowledging that the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples is their inalienable cultural heritage and embodies their cultural identity and that they make available such legislation and information in local indigenous languages.
Area of Work: Culture
Addressee: Member States, Academics, UNESCO
Paragraph Number: 71
Session: 6 (2007)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum welcomes resolution 176 EX/59 of the UNESCO Executive Council relating to indigenous languages and encourages member States, experts and UNESCO to conduct a preliminary study on the technical and judicial aspects of a possible international normative instrument for the protection of indigenous languages and languages under threat of extinction, including an analysis of the programmes UNESCO has carried out in this area, articulating linkages with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as adopted by the Human Rights Council in June 2006, to be submitted to the Executive Council of UNESCO at its 179th session.
Area of Work: Culture
Paragraph Number: 108
Session: 9 (2010)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum welcomes the initiative of the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to host the International Conference on Biological and Cultural Diversity: Diversity for Development (8-10 June 2010, Montreal, Canada) to develop a joint programme of work on biological and cultural diversity, and requests that future work include broad partnerships with the Permanent Forum, other relevant agencies, indigenous peoples’ organizations and non-governmental organizations
Area of Work: Culture, Environment
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 33
Session: 17 (2018)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum welcomes the work carried out by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in preparation for the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages and welcomes and supports the action plan for the International Year that was developed in cooperation with Member States, the Forum, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as indigenous peoples and a range of different stakeholders. The Forum calls upon Member States to implement the action plan in partnership with indigenous peoples, respecting the principle of “nothing about us without us”, including the establishment of national steering committees and national action plans for the International Year. States should allocate adequate funding for the successful implementation of the International Year.
Area of Work: Indigenous Languages, International Year of Indigenous Languages (2019)
Paragraph Number: 37
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
Recognizing the important partnership of WIPO and the Forum, the Forum makes the following recommendations to further this working relationship:
(a) The Forum strongly encourages representatives of indigenous peoples and local communities to participate actively in the work of WIPO in relation to genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions/ folklore, in particular through the submission of comments, case studies and position papers, including on the new WIPO web page established for this purpose;
(b) The Forum calls upon WIPO and member States, funds, foundations and other donors to provide funding to facilitate the participation of indigenous peoples, local communities and the Forum in sessions of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore and in related consultations, caucuses, briefings and workshops;
(c) The Forum recommends that, under the auspices of the Forum and in partnership with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, WIPO develop, in close consultation with indigenous peoples and local communities, the Forum and other organizations and stakeholders, as appropriate, guidelines, ethical codes of conduct, best practices and practical guides relating to intellectual property issues and the access to and use of traditional cultural expressions and knowledge by, among others, commercial users, ethnologists, folklorists and anthropologists, and museums and archives;
(d) The Forum confirms its readiness and willingness to provide expert input to the work of WIPO on intellectual property, traditional knowledge and folklore, such as its work on studying how customary and indigenous laws and protocols could be recognized and applied within national, regional and international systems for the protection of traditional knowledge and cultural expressions.
Area of Work: Culture
Addressee: WIPO
Paragraph Number: 55
Session: 11 (2012)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum calls upon the Intergovernmental Committee to appoint representatives of indigenous peoples as members of any Friends of the Chair groups and as co-chairs of any working groups and drafting groups that may be established by the Committee. It also calls upon the Committee to appoint an indigenous person as a co-chair of the Committee as a whole.
Area of Work: Culture, Traditional Knowledge
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 101
Session: 20 (2021)
Full Text:
During the pandemic, indigenous peoples have been seriously affected by a lack of access to energy, health-care establishments, education centres, infrastructure that supplies clean water, and communication services and information technologies. Governments have made a range of efforts to support economic activity in their responses to the economic impacts of the pandemic. The relaxation of environmental and human rights standards in order to support activities that will promote economic growth, such as logging, mining, large-scale agriculture and various infrastructure and energy projects, threaten indigenous peoples’ territories. The Permanent Forum requests Member States to include indigenous peoples in the preparatory process and the outcome of the high-level dialogue on energy to be held by the General Assembly in September 2021, in order to accelerate action on achieving Goal 7 and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement.
Area of Work: Methods of Work, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Addressee: UNESCO, World Heritage Committee
Paragraph Number: 23
Session: 12 (2013)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum welcomes the recommendations of the international expert workshop on the World Heritage Convention and indigenous peoples, held in Copenhagen on 20 and 21 September 2012, and the anticipated establishment by the World Heritage Committee of a consultative body on the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention during its thirty-seventh session, to be held in Phnom Penh from 17 to 27 June 2013, in order to consider, among others, revisions to the guidelines relating to the human rights of indigenous peoples, including the principle of free, prior and informed consent. The Forum recommends that UNESCO and the World Heritage Committee implement the Convention in accordance with the rights enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, taking an approach based on human rights. The Forum members will endeavour to participate in the thirty-seventh session of the Committee, including the meetings of the consultative body on the Operational Guidelines, as observers.
Area of Work: Culture
Addressee: Member States, UN entities
Paragraph Number: 12
Session: 20 (2021)
Full Text:
The global engagement of indigenous peoples at the international level has led to some positive institutional developments, including the establishment of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples can play an important role in the fight against climate change. Member States and United Nations entities should ensure that any activities related to the use of the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples respect indigenous peoples’ own protocols and consent agreements for managing access to their traditional knowledge. Strengthening and ensuring the full participation of indigenous peoples at all levels is also critical for the design and implementation of climate policies, plans, programmes and projects at the local, national and global levels.
Area of Work: Environment, Culture, Methods of Work
Addressee: Member states
Paragraph Number: 35
Session: 20 (2021)
Full Text:
Since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by Member States in 2015, the Permanent Forum has repeatedly highlighted the importance of ensuring the meaningful and full participation of indigenous peoples in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Unfortunately, the world is not on track to meet globally agreed targets. This has been particularly evident during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which existing inequities have been exacerbated, placing the survival of indigenous peoples at greater risk. During the pandemic, indigenous peoples, in particular indigenous women and girls, have not only been left behind, but have been left even further behind.
Area of Work: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Indigenous Women and Girls, Indigenous Children and Youth
