The Permanent Forum recommends that the World Bank brings its policy on indigenous peoples (OP 4.10) into full compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Forum attaches particular importance to the need for the Bank to adopt the standard of free, prior and informed consent and, in general, to institutionalize and operationalize an approach based on human rights. The Forum reiterates its recommendation, made at its twelfth session that the emerging instruments of the Bank and other agencies must be harmonized with the Declaration, which is regarded as a reflection of the minimum human rights standards necessary for the promotion and protection of indigenous peoples, nations and communities. Such instruments should be consistent with or exceed those minimum standards. The Forum underlines the need for the Bank’s operational policies to use language that is consistent with the Declaration.
Given the unique role of information and communications technology companies in the design, development and use of contemporary language technologies, the Permanent Forum reiterates its invitation to the private sector to contribute to the International Decade. The Permanent Forum encourages these companies to continue to develop digital platforms, in cooperation with indigenous peoples and academic institutions, in order to compile information archives for the preservation and revitalization of indigenous languages, language corpora, speech recognition, machine translation and synthesis tools, digital dictionaries and online courses.
The Forum recommends that a meeting of international financial institutions be convened, with the
participation of the Forum, to consider issues related to their policies, procedures and relationships concerning indigenous peoples, and that a report of the meeting be prepared for consideration at
The Permanent Forum urges States to financially resource, empower and support local Arctic indigenous communities in order to give indigenous youth and women, together with other members of the communities, the opportunity to secure and develop their cultures.
The Permanent Forum is concerned that the regional presence, representation and services of United Nations agencies in the Asia-Pacific region are limited mostly to the Asian subregion, and recommends that all United Nations agencies review their operations to provide equal services to the Pacific subregion and identify their operations separately according to the two subregions.