The Forum encourages organizers of pre-sessional regional meetings of indigenous peoples to develop suggestions and recommendations for the Forum to consider and encourages its members to participate in such meetings
The Permanent Forum decides to conduct a half-day discussion during its eighth session on the subject of “Countries of the Arctic region”, with the broad participation of indigenous communities, regional administrations and institutions of local self-governance.
The Permanent Forum observes that UNDP projects focused on indigenous peoples’ issues are few in number and dispersed, and constitute a very small fraction in the overall UNDP portfolio. This is a serious concern, as indigenous peoples are lagging behind in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and continue to face marginalization and exclusion. The Permanent Forum therefore recommends that UNDP allocate additional resources for projects that are focused on indigenous peoples’ issues and rights, including strengthening the regional programme in Asia and establishing new regional programmes in Latin America and Africa.