With regard to paragraph 139 of the report of the Permanent Forum on its sixth session, the Forum calls upon Governments, indigenous peoples organizations, regional administrations and local self-governance organs of the countries of the Arctic region to take an active part in the discussion on the Arctic region at the eighth session of the Forum. The Forum urges the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations to give special consideration to applications from indigenous participants from the Arctic region.
The Permanent Forum urges the Government of Canada to work with the Friendship Centre Movement and other relevant organizations to determine how it can strengthen its roles and responsibilities with regard to urban indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum deems it urgently necessary for UNDP to develop a deeper understanding of indigenous peoples’ world views. This requires, inter alia, that UNDP enhance its own capacity in the area of the human rights of indigenous peoples by having, at least, one full-time adviser on indigenous peoples’ rights. This adviser should be an indigenous professional who has experience working in or with indigenous organizations. The Permanent Forum further recommends that UNDP establish internal mechanisms to monitor and ensure compliance with its own programmes and operations policies and procedures related to indigenous peoples’ rights. The UNDP Liaison Committee on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues, in collaboration with the Permanent Forum, should develop a system to receive concerns from indigenous peoples and ensure the application of the internal policies and procedures of UNDP.
The Permanent Forum reiterates its call to Member States to redouble their efforts to ensure disaggregated data collection on indigenous peoples (in accordance with target 17.10) and to include complementary indicators on indigenous peoples in voluntary national reports submitted by Governments for meetings of the high-level political forum on sustainable development. Data disaggregated by ethnicity will help Governments to make informed decisions in a culturally appropriate way in response to the specific needs of indigenous peoples. The Forum underlines the importance of applying a human rights-based approach to data collection, including on ethnicity.
The Permanent Forum appreciates the willingness of Envoy of the Secretary-General on Youth to make visible the situation of indigenous youth, in particular concerning suicide and self-harm, in his advocacy. The Forum calls upon Member States to implement the recommendations of the international expert group meeting on indigenous youth, held in 2013 (see E/C.19/2013/3), in collaboration with the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development and with the full participation of indigenous youth. The Forum invites the Network to report on progress in this regard at the sixteenth session of the Forum. The Forum invites the Network and the Envoy to increase the participation of indigenous youth in the sessions of the Forum and all relevant United Nations forums, and to report on progress in this regard at the sixteenth session of the Forum.
Noting that the Economic and Social Council, at its substantive session of 2003, will devote its high-level segment to rural development, the Forum recommends that the Council, in formulating its conclusions, take into account the unique cultural identities of indigenous peoples and the necessity for their meaningful participation in the planning, implementation and evaluation of programmes dealing with rural development.
The Permanent Forum recognizes the initial efforts made by FAO towards the elaboration of a methodological discussion platform to address indigenous peoples’ territorial rights. The Permanent Forum recommends that FAO and other interested or partner agencies continue the joint elaboration of the participatory methodology and start using it in the field in order to strengthen the delimitation, titling and negotiated development processes specifically targeting indigenous peoples’ needs
The Permanent Forum notes that in international law, the right to adequate food and the fundamental right to be free from hunger apply to everyone without discrimination. The Permanent Forum is concerned about the implementation gap between what is legally recognized and the reality. The right to food is frequently denied or violated, often as a result of systematic discrimination or the widespread lack of applicability of indigenous peoples’ rights. The Permanent Forum recommends that States engage in an inclusive and participatory process to ensure food sovereignty and security, in accordance with the principles of free, prior and informed consent, and develop standards and methodologies and cultural indicators to assess and address food sovereignty.
Recalling article 32 of the Declaration, which recognizes that indigenous peoples have the right to “determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or territories and other resources”, the Permanent Forum urges the African Development Bank, the European Investment Bank and the Nordic Investment Bank to develop and adopt policies on indigenous peoples on the basis of the Declaration, to ensure that the programmes and projects for which they provide support respect, promote and protect the rights of indigenous peoples.
With a view to assessing the effectiveness of the implementation of policies on indigenous peoples, the Permanent Forum recommends to the United Nations entities that carry out free, prior and informed consent processes to develop a system for comprehensively documenting these processes.
The Permanent Forum reiterates its recommendations on the establishment of the indigenous fellowship programme within its secretariat and requests Governments, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), other donors and foundations to contribute to the fellowship programme so that it can be launched and administered in 2007.
The Permanent Forum requests ILO, IFAD and the United Nations Development Programme to prepare a study, in collaboration with indigenous peoples, summarizing the experience of implementing programmes for indigenous peoples on socioeconomic development, focussing on best practices in entrepreneurship and creative industries, and to present it to the Permanent Forum at its twenty -third session, to be held in 2024.