The Permanent Forum appoints Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim and Vital Bambanze, members of the Forum, to conduct a study on indigenous peoples and resource conflicts in the Sahel and in the Congo Basin, and to present that study to the Forum at its twenty-first session.
The Permanent Forum reiterates its invitation to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to adopt a general recommendation on indigenous women by 2020, in accordance with the Declaration and other international instruments. The Forum recommends that the general recommendation on indigenous women consider issues related to the individual and collective rights to equality, non-discrimination and self-determination; social and economic rights, including the rights to decent work and to land, territory and resources; the right to water and food; cultural rights; civil and political rights; and the right to live free of any form of violence.
The Permanent Forum recommends the proposal by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and other organizations to hold an expert workshop on the contribution to development of pastoralist cultures and hunting and gathering societies.
The Permanent Forum urges States to respect and support indigenous peoples’ priorities, including through the development and implementation of economic recovery strategic plans to support and strengthen indigenous peoples’ institutions, authorities and decision-making bodies in the exercise of their right to selfdetermination. Indigenous peoples have the right to possess the means for financing their autonomous functions and priorities.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the dialogues to support indigenous peoples’ preparations for the United Nations Food Systems Summit. The Forum requests Member States and the secretariat of the Summit to guarantee the participation of indigenous peoples at the Summit with a view to ensuring due reflection of indigenous peoples’ rights and issues in the relevant outcome documents.
The Forum is fully aware of the close links between conflict and poverty. Conflicts cause poverty and reverse development. The Forum invites those United Nations agencies, funds and programmes working in areas of conflict to consider the special needs of indigenous peoples in their work.
The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has analysed and discussed indigenous fishing rights in the seas on the basis of a report submitted by the Special Rapporteurs. As a result of those discussions, the Forum considers the protection of the material basis of the culture of indigenous peoples to be a part of international law that should be applied also to fishing rights in the seas, and recommends that States in which indigenous peoples live in coastal areas recognize indigenous peoples’ right to fish in the seas on the basis of historical use and international law. In that context, the Forum notes the ongoing consultations between the Government of Norway and the Sami Parliament and recommends that the Government recognize the right of the coastal Sami to fish in the seas on the basis of historical use and international law.
The Permanent Forum recommends that FAO, in 2014, the International Year of Family Farming, organize and host an expert seminar on culture, food sovereignty and traditional livelihoods to feed into the post-2015 process. The seminar should include the participation of an elder, an adult and a young person from each of the seven sociocultural regions of the Forum.
Improve and increase indigenous women's economic and social conditions through: (a) expansion of employment opportunities; (b) Promotion of the professionalization of their traditional skills, arts and crafts; c) Access to resources, including microcredit, new technologies and agricultural input; (d) Support the regional meetings of indigenous women and organize training on international, regional and national mechanisms
The Permanent Forum recommends that States, in order to combat the adverse effects of migration, cooperate with indigenous peoples to provide employment and economic development opportunities within their territories.
The Permanent Forum reiterates its recommendation made at its eighteenth session for the Pan American Health Organization to prepare a study on the advancements in indigenous maternal health, including with the participation of indigenous midwives (E/2019/43, para. 45). The Permanent Forum also recommends that WHO prepare similar studies in other regions.