The Forum recommends that the Inter-Agency Support Group discuss how to promote the cross-cutting issue of children and youth.
The Permanent Forum requests that UNICEF and UNESCO support intercultural and bilingual education programmes in conjunction with the indigenous peoples concerned, paying special attention to the right of girls to primary and secondary education.
The Forum decides to form a working group, including experts on statistics, to set directions for future statistical work, including that of the United Nations Statistics Division, and also decides that representatives from the Forum shall participate in scientific meetings to improve statistics in this area of work, such as the upcoming meeting sponsored by the International Association of Official Statisticians meeting, to be held in New Zealand on 14 and 15 April 2005, on the theme "Measuring small and indigenous populations".
"The Permanent Forum urges States to provide information to it on developments relating to the collective rights of indigenous peoples and constructive agreements with indigenous peoples at its eighteenth session, including the following: (a) Effective measures taken to halt land alienation in the territories of indigenous peoples; (b) Financial and technical assistance provided to indigenous peoples to map the boundaries of their communal lands; (c) Legal and policy frameworks that have been implemented for the registration of collective titles; (d) National legislation adopted with the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples when such legislation involves their territories, lands and natural resources."
The Permanent Forum fully supports plans by indigenous peoples’ organizations and networks in Asia to undertake assessments of how peace agreements that affect them are being implemented in specific countries, and calls on donor agencies to support those initiatives.
The Permanent Forum reiterates the call, made at its fifth and eleventh sessions, upon United Nations agencies and funds to conduct and support regional and international human rights training programmes aimed at building the capacity and advocacy skills of indigenous youth. The Forum further recommends the use of youth forums, social media and other popular cultural forms of communication to disseminate information and training material on the rights of indigenous youth and to facilitate consultation processes at the national and international levels.
The Forum welcomes the inclusion in the 2003 Ibero-American Summit of a focus on indigenous children, and recommends that UNICEF report to the Forum on the results of the Summit in that area, and to indicate how lessons can be learned and policy approaches improved concerning indigenous children in other parts of the world with indigenous peoples, specifically Asia and Africa.
The Permanent Forum urges States to take the measures at the national level necessary for the prevention of self-harm and suicide among indigenous children and youth, in particular by promoting the training of experts in the field of psychology who focus on issues specific to indigenous peoples. Such special training should take into account economic, historical, social, ecological and other factors, such as the loss of indigenous languages, cultures and lands.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the work carried out by ECLAC through the Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre (CELADE)-Population Division on the production and analysis of available census data, incorporating the perspective and participation of indigenous peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean, and recommends that ECLAC:
(a) Invite the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights to contribute to its work on indicators;
(b) Increase the number of technical studies that contribute to the development of culturally sensitive indicators in order to monitor Millennium Development Goals as part of a coordinated effort by other parts of the United Nations system;
(c) Build capacity and provide technical assistance to governmental officers and indigenous organizations in the production, analysis and use of sociodemographic information for public policies, in particular taking into account the 2010 census round;
(d) Mainstream indigenous peoples’ views in all relevant activities of the institution in the context of economic, social and cultural rights.
A majority of States have yet to grant official recognition to indigenous peoples, let alone their collective rights to lands, territories and resources. The Permanent Forum expresses its grave concern about the non-recognition of indigenous peoples, in particular in Africa and Asia, and recommends that States incorporate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into national legislation, policies and programmes.
The Forum reiterates its request to the Inter-Agency Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators to make the land-related indicator operational, including on changing land use and the security of land tenure in the traditional territories of indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum requests that UNICEF prepare a report on the state of the world’s children, with a thematic focus on indigenous children. The report should give special attention to the implementation by Member States of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and general comment No. 11 (2009) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on indigenous children and their rights under the Convention. Furthermore, the Forum requests UNICEF to begin to disaggregate data on indigenous children, including from its existing database.