The Permanent Forum remains concerned about the state of formal education for indigenous young people and calls upon States to fully fund bilingual and culturally appropriate primary, secondary and tertiary education programmes led by indigenous peoples, including mobile education initiatives for nomadic and semi-nomadic communities. Supporting informal and formal indigenous education systems is crucial in order to maintain and transmit traditional indigenous knowledge systems.
Considering that indigenous peoples are empowered to assume leadership in governments at various levels, particularly at the local level, the Permanent Forum urges the United Nations system, including the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UNDP and all other relevant agencies, with the support of Member States and donor agencies, to implement, before the convening of its next session, a platform for indigenous local-local cooperation and the establishment of a network of indigenous local governments for information exchange and capacity-building on public administration, local socio-economic governance and participatory approaches to facilitate the implementation of the goals of the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the United Nations development agenda at the local level among indigenous peoples in all regions.
The Forum recommends that the Special Rapporteur on the right to education pay special attention in her work to the right to education as contained in treaties, agreements, and other constructive arrangements between indigenous peoples, Nations and States.
The Permanent Forum has paid particular attention to the participation and representation of indigenous peoples in development processes, such as those related to the Millennium Development Goals, data collection and disaggregation, and urban indigenous peoples and migration. The Forum has recommended on numerous occasions that United Nations agencies, international financial institutions and other development actors change their paradigms and approaches to their work with indigenous peoples. This includes increased mainstreaming of indigenous peoples’ issues in their work, respect for the principle of free, prior and informed consent, recognition of collective rights, including treaty rights, and increased participation of indigenous peoples, including women, in programme design, implementation and monitoring.
The Permanent Forum recommends that Governments and States promote the creation of conditions for indigenous peoples that will enable them to maintain the forests in their traditional way and conserve their cultural identity, with priority accorded to indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation, strengthening their capacities and highlighting the value of ancestral knowledge related to native forests. The Forum further recommends that the traditional knowledge and traditional forest management practices and governance systems of indigenous peoples for the protection and use of their forests be recognized in all forest policies and climate-related forest initiatives.
The Forum invites the Economic and Social Council and the regional commissions to present reports on the economic situation, scenarios and impacts of free-trade policies, especially the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, with emphasis on indigenous peoples.
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 recommends that the World Bank, in consultation with the Forum and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, examine the involuntary resettlement of indigenous peoples in connection with projects financed by the Bank and submit a report thereon in 2014.
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 also welcomes the launching by FAO, during the twenty-seventh session of its Technical Committee on Agriculture, in 2020, of the global hub on indigenous peoples’ food systems. It recommends that FAO continue to facilitate the work of the global hub. In addition, the Permanent Forum welcomes the White/Whipala paper on indigenous peoples’ food systems, which was drafted under the coordination of the global hub, and which has been accepted as one of the scientific papers that will serve to inform constituents at the Summit.
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.
Furthermore, the Forum expresses its conviction that Governments should adopt special measures to achieve equitable educational outcomes for indigenous children, especially indigenous girls, and that special emphasis is required for headstart and early childhood programs for indigenous children