The Permanent Forum urges UNDP to strengthen its institutional capacity on indigenous peoples’ issues by establishing a task force to serve as a liaison mechanism between headquarters and focal points on indigenous issues at the country level. Furthermore, the Forum recommends that these focal points be specialists on indigenous peoples’ issues.
The Permanent Forum commends existing small-grant schemes and programmes, since they often enable indigenous peoples’ organizations to play an active role in implementing the recommendations of the Forum. The Forum encourages the United Nations system to develop small-grant schemes and to increase the level of funding aimed directly at indigenous peoples and also to continue establishing mechanisms to ensure that they effectively reach and benefit indigenous peoples at the local level and provide funds directly to indigenous organizations for socioculturally appropriate project implementation.
In order to improve the implementation of its recommendations, the Permanent Forum calls upon United Nations agencies to ensure that there are systems in place to share information with and distribute information to indigenous peoples at the local level so that they have the opportunity to engage with the work of the United Nations at the country level and express their views and concerns and implement their policies. The Forum also encourages indigenous peoples’ organizations to engage actively with the United Nations system at the country level and urges United Nations resident coordinators’ offices to engage with indigenous peoples’ organizations and representatives and ensure their active participation and consultation in policy dialogues at the national level.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the United Nations Development Group guidelines on indigenous peoples’ issues, and encourages United Nations agencies to actively disseminate, promote and implement those guidelines, particularly among their country offices. In that regard, the Forum urges the Development Group to give priority to the promotion, use and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the most universal, comprehensive and fundamental instrument on indigenous peoples’ rights, and to fully reflect this in the next edition of the Group’s guidelines. The Forum also recommends that donor agencies consider providing financial assistance to implement the guidelines.
The Permanent Forum calls on the World Bank to activate the 2005 Extractive Industries Review in order to address the impact and legacy of extractive industries on indigenous lands, territories and resources.
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.
The Permanent Forum urges United Nations bodies and specialized agencies to implement the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States.
The Permanent Forum notes with appreciation the active engagement of UNFPA with indigenous peoples in the regions of Latin America and Asia, as well as its detailed reporting on its work in these areas. The Permanent Forum invites UNFPA to continue reporting on its work and recommends that future reports deal with agency activities in all sociocultural regions or, if no relevant activities are under way in a particular region, the challenges to addressing indigenous issues in such regions.
The Permanent Forum recommends that a capacity-development component be included in UNDP projects that affect indigenous peoples. The Forum also recommends that the experience and knowledge of the Small Grants Programme of the Global Environmental Facility be utilized by other small-grant schemes and that a stronger link be developed between efforts to enhance the capacity of indigenous peoples’ organizations and UNDP efforts to enhance the participation of indigenous peoples in national policy processes
The Permanent Forum commends the UNDP Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean for starting a regional initiative building on the Programme’s experience in Asia. The Forum recommends that the initiative be consolidated and that the Regional Bureau implement a regional programme to ensure cross-fertilization of good practices among countries and coherent policy approaches. The Forum encourages the Regional Bureau to strengthen its capacity and, together with the Inter-Agency Support Group, looks forward to supporting those efforts through specialized training workshops for United Nations country teams.
The Permanent Forum recommends that when planning, preparing and implementing its programmes and projects, IFAD conduct the necessary investigations so as to ensure that the particularities and cultural sensitivities of indigenous peoples involved in and affected by the programmes and projects are taken into account. The Permanent Forum underlines the fact that indigenous peoples are to be engaged as an active and equal partner in all processes and phases of programmes and projects.
The Permanent Forum takes note of the determination of IFAD — for which it congratulates the Fund — to identify indigenous peoples as a specific target group within the agency’s strategic framework, which, in a significant way, has consolidated and legitimized indigenous peoples’ issues in its work with its partners, other organizations and States. The Permanent Forum finds that identifying indigenous peoples as a specific target group is a standard-setting approach, to be duplicated by the United Nations and other international agencies. It is recommended that IFAD maintain its strong focus on indigenous peoples’ issues in the formulation of the new institutional strategic framework, which is due to commence soon.