The Forum urges the United Nations system and States to give special priority to implementing previous recommendations made by the Forum, and to take into account the cross-cutting nature of human rights issues.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the report of the technical expert group meeting on indicators, mechanisms and data for assessing the implementation of indigenous peoples’ rights, held in Geneva in September 2010 by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the secretariat of the Permanent Forum. The report sets out important principles and guidance for further work. The Permanent Forum recommends that the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues and, in particular, ILO, OHCHR and the secretariat of the Permanent Forum continue their work to develop a common framework for monitoring the situation and well-being of indigenous peoples and the implementation of the Declaration, including the identification of indigenous-appropriate indicators, possible data sources and linkages to relevant mechanisms. The process should be taken forward in a collaborative manner with other interested institutions, ensuring full consultation and participation of indigenous peoples.
The Forum recommends strengthening the mechanisms for collaboration with United Nations agencies and Governments, and monitoring compliance with and the implementation of its recommendations made to United Nations agencies and Governments.
The Permanent Forum recommends that relevant States recognize indigenous peoples’ right to prior, free and informed consent and provide support mechanisms for involuntarily displaced indigenous peoples to be able to return to their original communities, including appropriate forms of repatriation, compensation and restitution and provision for the sustainable livelihoods of those peoples.
The Permanent Forum encourages Member States, in particular those in Africa and Asia, to invite the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples to undertake country studies and promote best practices in realizing the rights of indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum urges the Governments of Central and Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation, Central Asia and Transcaucasia regions to implement international standards and norms on the rights of indigenous peoples and ensure their rights to lands, territories and resources, in particular article 20 of the Declaration. This includes recognizing reindeer herders’ use and management of grazing land and use of necessary biological resources by hunters, fishers and foragers.
The Permanent Forum recommends that United Nations agencies and actors coordinate in the development and implementation of an international research project on the sexual and reproductive health of indigenous peoples, ensuring an active partnership with indigenous peoples and organizations in all stages of the project.
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.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Secretary-General provide adequate human and financial resources for the purpose of meeting the requirements of articles 41 and 42 of the Declaration as they apply to the Permanent Forum.
The Forum recommends that States pay special attention to the situation of uncontacted indigenous peoples, peoples in voluntary isolation, and peoples in isolated and remote localities and displaced peoples from indigenous communities. The Forum recommends that the Special Rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people pay special attention in his annual reports to the situation of these peoples. The Forum also considers that the situation of these peoples should be the subject of a special international meeting during the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People.
Many indigenous peoples described situations where their human rights were being impacted by large-scale infrastructure projects, natural resource extraction and industrial agriculture activities in their territories without their free, prior and informed consent. The Permanent Forum received information to that effect from the Shuar, Sapara, Maasai and Ogaden peoples, among others. The Forum is concerned, in particular, by cases where it appears that the interests of investors are better protected than the rights of indigenous peoples. It reiterates that States and the private sector must respect the human rights of indigenous peoples by ensuring the effective implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
The Forum recommends that all human rights treaty bodies and other human rights mechanisms of the United Nations and the treaty monitoring mechanisms of ILO pay special attention to the human rights of indigenous peoples, in particular indigenous women, in the discharge of their mandates. The Forum also encourages indigenous women’s organizations and other organizations working in this area to enhance their cooperation and contacts with these mechanisms.