The Forum urges States and the United Nations agencies to support the attendance and participation of indigenous youth at future sessions of the Permanent Forum
During the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, the members of the Permanent Forum were not able to register as United Nations experts. Forum members attend many United Nations meetings where their specific status is not recognized. The Forum therefore recommends that Member States include Forum members as United Nations experts, not as part of major groups, in United Nations accreditation processes.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the document of the Commission of the European Communities (COM (2008)), Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council: The European Union and the Arctic Region delivered in Brussels on 20 November 2008 and urges the European Union to begin implementing the recommendations relevant to indigenous peoples from this document.
The Forum decides to devote sufficient time during its fifth session to special events for the purpose of identifying the issues, challenges and positive measures of cooperation required to improve the situation of indigenous peoples in the above-mentioned regions (North America, the Arctic, the Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America) and invites the United Nations system, as well as relevant Governments, regional intergovernmental institutions and organizations, and indigenous peoples organizations to contribute to these special events
The Permanent Forum recommends that the United Nations system continue to build the capacities of indigenous peoples’ organizations and to develop their knowledge and skills to have their rights respected, protected and fulfilled.
The Permanent Forum urges the funds, programmes and agencies of the United Nations system to cooperate with States and indigenous peoples in the development and implementation of national action plans, strategies and other measures that aim to achieve the ends of the Declaration, including by providing support for the advancement and adjudication of the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their lands, territories and resources.
The Forum reaffirms the UNDP focus on implementing its policy of working with indigenous peoples at the country level, and urges UNDP to continue its work to develop a policy on land tenure rights with the participation of indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum encourages United Nations entities, the World Bank, the Green Climate Fund, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other relevant international and regional bodies to align their policies with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples should be employed within those entities as part of diversity and inclusion policies and to ensure Indigenous perspectives.
Relations with the Commission on Sustainable Development should be strengthened, inter alia, by ensuring that the Chairpersons of the Commission and the Permanent Forum are invited to present statements at each other’s annual meetings and that cooperation between the secretariats of the Commission and the Permanent Forum is enhanced.
The Permanent Forum urges the Asian Development Bank, in projects that it funds, to ensure that it avoids adverse impacts on indigenous peoples and their watersheds and other fragile ecosystems and to promote the rights of indigenous peoples to land and resources.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the launching of the United Nations Indigenous Peoples’ Partnership (UNIPP) and urges Member States and others to provide support for the implementation of joint country programmes in at least 8 to 10 countries over the next five years and to the Regional Initiative on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Development in Asia and the Pacific through UNIPP.
The Permanent Forum recommends that social and environmental impact assessments, including human rights impact assessments and poverty impact assessments, of financial investments and trade agreements directly affecting indigenous peoples be undertaken, and that the resources for those assessments be provided by the sources of the investments and the parties to trade agreements.