The Permanent Forum welcomes the initiation of a national dialogue to discuss and achieve key constitutional reforms in the field of justice in Guatemala, and encourages the recognition of indigenous justice systems. The Forum urges Guatemala and the private sector, in addition to the World Bank and other international economic institutions, to acknowledge that serious efforts require structural economic and social reforms rather than rapid growth of gross domestic product in order to reverse widespread and growing poverty among the indigenous peoples of Guatemala. Such crucial reforms must ensure more equitable distribution and access to traditional lands for the indigenous peoples of Guatemala, consistent with the rights affirmed in the United Nations Declaration, and on the basis of respect for and legal recognition of their collective rights, including their self-determined development. Furthermore, the Forum calls upon Guatemala to reinforce the effective and full implementation of the Peace Accords.
The Permanent Forum encourages the Commission for Social Development to consider indigenous peoples’ issues at the fifty-sixth session of the Commission as part of its agenda related to the 2017-2018 priority theme “Strategies for eradicating poverty to achieve sustainable development for all”.
The Forum urges the United Nations Secretariat to protect the privileges and immunities of members of the Forum and recommends that immediate action be taken to address any reported incidents.
The year 2022 is the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture. The Permanent Forum therefore recommends that FAO prepare a study on the impacts of industrial fishing on the rights of indigenous peoples in regard to traditional fishing. The Permanent Forum invites the Organization to share the findings of said study at the twenty-third session of the Permanent Forum, to be held in 2024.
The Permanent Forum decides to authorize a three-day international expert group workshop on indigenous peoples’ rights, corporate accountability and the extractive industries, and requests that the results of the meeting be reported to the Forum at its eighth session, in 2009. The report of that workshop can feed into the eighteenth and nineteenth sessions of the Commission on Sustainable Development, which will address the themes of mining, chemicals, waste management and sustainable consumption and production patterns, and contribute to the review by the eighteenth session of the Commission.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the participation at its sixth session of indigenous parliamentarians from, inter alia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Greenland, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Norway, Peru, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and encourages indigenous parliamentarians to continue participating at future sessions in their own capacity, with designated seating arrangements.
The Forum intends to pursue the agenda of mainstreaming indigenous issues into the process of the Millennium Development Goals and applying the thematic approach to build up a three-year programme of work. The Forum intends moreover to focus on implementation and urges United Nations bodies, States and indigenous peoples to engage actively in the dialogue on these issues, sharing good practices and barriers to implementation.
The Permanent Forum encourages all United Nations agencies that have not yet developed a policy on engaging with indigenous peoples to follow the example of sister agencies in order to ensure that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is adequately reflected in all United Nations programmes.
The Permanent Forum calls upon the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity to work in partnership with other members of the Inter-Agency Support Group and donors to organize regional workshops for the purposes of information exchange and capacity-building among Governments, indigenous peoples and local communities and other stakeholders with regard to the proposed international regime on access and benefit-sharing. In addition, the secretariat is called upon to provide financial support for indigenous networks to disseminate information, in appropriate and accessible languages, and through appropriate media, to indigenous communities on this issue.
The Permanent Forum expresses its readiness to examine existing practices and
ways of developing various forms of administrative and territorial autonomy for
indigenous peoples’ communities whose representatives lead a traditional, nomadic
way of life, as part of the development of the guiding principles on indigenous
peoples’ autonomy and self-government as recommended in the study on indigenous
peoples’ autonomies: experiences and perspectives (E/C.19/2020/5). Such work will
be conducted by an online working group of the Permanent Forum. Indigenous
peoples’ organizations, representative decision-making bodies and institutions,
together with United Nations system entities, Member States and other stakeholders,
are invited to contribute financially and practically and to take an active part in the
work of the working group.
The Permanent Forum urges the Governments of Canada and the United States to eliminate all assimilation policies that further exacerbate the economic and other disparities between indigenous peoples and the rest of the population.
The Permanent Forum recommends that joint regional and/or thematic preparatory conferences, workshops or other events be organized with the support of Member States, United Nations agencies, funds and programmes and indigenous peoples, with the full participation of indigenous peoples and Member States, as well as the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Permanent Forum.