The Permanent Forum notes the increasing operational activity of extractive industries and other large-scale development projects, including land grabbing, which is taking place on or near the territories of indigenous peoples in many African States, often without the involvement of indigenous peoples and without their free, prior and informed consent. The Forum recommends that African States must respect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in particular the right of indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent.
The Permanent Forum urges UNDP to further strengthen the right to self-determination of indigenous peoples by choosing indigenous peoples’ organizations as their implementing partners and responsible parties in their projects involving indigenous peoples, especially those with established track records in project implementation. As a corollary to the foregoing, government agencies created to promote and protect the rights and interests of indigenous peoples should be preferred as implementing partners in UNDP programming on indigenous peoples’ issues so that they can effectively perform their mandate
The Forum recommends to the United Nations Development Group that the indicators of the Millennium Development Goals be assessed and that additional indicators be identified to give fuller assessment of environmental sustainability.
The Permanent Forum appreciates the participation, at its twenty-first session, of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes and recommends that the Special Rapporteur urge Member States to guarantee indigenous peoples’ rights to clean water. The Permanent Forum invites the Special Rapporteur to participate at its twenty-second session, in 2023.
The Forum recommends that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)/Development Assistance Committee (DAC) invite the Forum to its fourth session to make a presentation on the work of the Forum and explore future collaboration.
The Permanent Forum invites the World Trade Organization to prepare an analysis of the ways in which indigenous peoples are affected by and included in international trade agreements and treaties, and to present it to the Permanent Forum at its twenty-third session, to be held in 2024.
The Permanent Forum appreciates the steps taken by the African Development Bank to include safeguards for indigenous peoples in its integrated safeguards system. The Forum is concerned, however, that the Bank remains the only multilateral bank not to have a stand-alone safeguard policy for indigenous peoples. The Forum recommends that the Bank fast-track, in coordination with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other regional bodies, a regional policy framework for indigenous peoples in line with the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and report on progress to the Forum at its thirteenth session, in 2014. The Forum further recommends that the Bank develop a mechanism specifically to support the entrepreneurship activities of indigenous peoples.
The common country assessment/United Nations Development Assistance Framework, poverty reduction strategy papers and other development processes, national or international, should ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples, including indigenous women
The Forum recommends that the Committee on the Rights of the Child, as the treaty monitoring body for the Convention on the Rights of the Child, review the compliance of States Parties with article 24, which recognized the basic right of all children to "the provision of adequate and nutritional foods and clean drinking water, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution", with particular attention to its impact on traditional subsistence foods, and that the Committee address those issues during the day of general discussion on the indigenous child in September 2003.
The Permanent Forum appoints Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim and Vital Bambanze, members of the Forum, to conduct a study on indigenous peoples and resource conflicts in the Sahel and in the Congo Basin, and to present that study to the Forum at its twenty-first session.
The Permanent Forum requests that UNICEF coordinate its activities and operations with the United Nations Programme on Youth, the secretariat of the Forum and the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus to ensure the participation of indigenous youth in the upcoming high-level meeting on youth.
The Permanent Forum notes with concern that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased sexual and reproductive health challenges worldwide and stresses that there is a need for Governments to implement the commitments they made during the summit held in Nairobi in 2019 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of on the International Conference on Population and Development.