The Permanent Forum calls upon the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), UNICEF, UNFPA, UNDP and other entities of the United Nations system to develop programmes and projects that support and build the capacity of indigenous women in Africa in order to empower them economically and socially. A good practice in this regard is strengthening the entrepreneurship of indigenous women and facilitating their access to formal markets and financial institutions for their activities. The Forum also encourages States to develop affirmative actions that are aimed at actively including indigenous women in decision-making at all levels and at ensuring that indigenous women’s voices are equally represented in economic, social and political decision-making processes.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the recent entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Forum encourages Member States to accede to the Optional Protocol and requests the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to consider the preparation of a general comment on the economic, social and cultural rights of indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the lively and analytical dialogue that emerged from the half-day discussion on the African region and encourages the United Nations Development Group to facilitate further dialogue between States and indigenous peoples at the African continental level to foster better understanding of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the commitments to indigenous peoples that Member States have made. Within this framework, capacity-building at the national level should be enhanced.
The Permanent Forum recommends that all United Nations agencies concerned with water, including UNESCO and the International Hydrological Programme, UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, the United Nations Environment Programme and FAO, give full support to the planning, development and implementation of an indigenous world forum on water in order to give voice to the indigenous peoples’ perspective of protection and access to all sources of water and its sacred role in the indigenous context.
The Permanent Forum invites the agencies of the United Nations system, including UNDP, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in cooperation with the secretariats of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as other relevant stakeholders, to convene a workshop on African pastoralism, indigenous peoples’ rights and climate adaptation.
The Permanent Forum encourages States, multilateral environmental agencies and other conservation agencies to adopt a rights-based approach to conservation and follow-up and to systematically evaluate how the rights are implemented.
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 the development and inclusion of clear indicators and monitoring tools relating to indigenous peoples in the sustainable development goals and post-2015 development process, to be developed jointly with indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the summary and outcome of the discussion on the post-2015 process held during the twelfth session of the Forum and the outcome of the consultations held with indigenous peoples in preparation for the post-2015 development agenda be transmitted as background documents to the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals
The Permanent Forum recommends that the co-chairs of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals invite members of the Forum and representatives of indigenous peoples, including indigenous women, youth and persons with disabilities, to participate in the dedicated meeting that the co-chairs intend to convene later in 2013 in order to have a comprehensive dialogue and interaction with indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations system ensure the inclusion and meaningful participation of indigenous peoples in all processes relating to the elaboration of the sustainable development goals. In this regard, the Forum recommends that indigenous peoples and their organizations and representatives participate in the dialogues between Member States and civil society during meetings of the Group.
In this regard, the Permanent Forum recommends that Member States and the United Nations system take due account of the outcome document and the conclusions of the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, to be held in September 2014, given that this process is deeply interrelated with the post-2015 process and will set the context for future work on indigenous peoples’ issues.