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Paragraph Number: 20
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum recommends that the United Nations system consider the following recommendations:
(a) The United Nations system should fully explore the protection, use and promotion of indigenous (including traditional) knowledge and ensure synergies across the relevant bodies currently investigating the issues (specifically the World Intellectual Property Organization, UNESCO, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Health Organization, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and others) and furthermore should invite the Forum to participate;
(b) UNESCO should continue to investigate indigenous pedagogy and its application to indigenous education in collaboration with the Special Rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples and the Forum and other relevant bodies. The study should include the use of such strategies as boarding schools and both their negative and positive effects. To assist with this investigation into indigenous education, UNESCO is urged to facilitate regional conferences and a global forum on indigenous education to identify both barriers to educational equity and good practice;
(c) The Forum calls upon Governments and UNESCO to give more attention (by increasing their budgets) to developing quality indigenous education policies (with the participation of indigenous peoples) to achieve the Dakar objectives. “Education for all” is one of the fundamental objectives of the World Education Forum that should be achieved by 2015;
(d) The Forum encourages the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNESCO and other agencies to continue to support, in cooperation with indigenous peoples, intercultural and bilingual education programmes and to promote in particular the right of education for girls;
(e) The Forum should work with UNITAR to coordinate training for indigenous peoples within the United Nations system;
(f) UNESCO is requested to facilitate a world indigenous education conference, with appropriate United Nations partners (the Forum, UNESCO, UNITAR etc.), Member States and indigenous peoples. Furthermore, UNESCO should invite indigenous peoples and the Forum to participate in United Nations activities in the field of education. UNESCO has recently completed and distributed a publication on best practices for indigenous peoples education and this should be promoted throughout the international community;
(g) UNICEF advocates bilingual and cross-cultural education for indigenous peoples and conducts schools for girls and women’s literacy programmes in Latin America, and this initiative should be further encouraged and expanded;
(h) The Forum recommends that relevant agencies and Governments, on a regional basis, should provide technical services and the political and moral support needed for the creation, recognition and functioning of future international indigenous universities;
(i) Taking into account the importance of UNESCO national commissions, the Forum recommends that the Economic and Social Council and Governments facilitate the participation of indigenous peoples in the regional commissions with the incorporation of indigenous representation;
(j) The Forum, to underscore the crucial role of language skills to sustainable development and in celebration of the United Nations Year on Education for Sustainable Development (2005), recommends that the secretariat of the Forum, together with the United Nations Development Programme, UNICEF and UNESCO, explore the possibility of organizing a regional workshop in Asia or Africa on the theme “Indigenous children and language education”, to discuss policies, programmes and practical experiences with bilingual education to strengthen additive learning through the use of mother tongue and the “indigenization” of curricula in formal schooling, among members of the Forum, United Nations agencies, Governments (especially departments of education), indigenous and tribal representatives and indigenous education experts.
Area of Work: Education, Traditional Knowledge
Paragraph Number: 47
Session: 17 (2018)
Full Text:
The Forum recommends the creation of a global, legally binding regime for toxic industrial chemicals and hazardous pesticides, the vast majority of which are currently unregulated under existing conventions, to protect the rights of everyone, including indigenous peoples, from the grave threats to human rights presented by the ongoing chemical intensification of the global economy. Such a regime should have strong accountability and compliance mechanisms and be in conformity with international human rights standards, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Area of Work: Environment
Addressee: Member States, UNICEF, UNESCO, UN agencies
Paragraph Number: 20
Session: 12 (2013)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum recommends that States, in collaboration with indigenous peoples and United Nations agencies, including UNICEF and UNESCO, prepare a comprehensive report on the number of indigenous languages spoken in each State. It is important to identify the current numbers and ages of fluent speakers of each indigenous language, in addition to measures, including constitutional, legislative, regulatory and policy measures, as well as financial support, whether ongoing or project-based, by States, United Nations agencies and indigenous peoples, to ensure that indigenous languages continue to be used, survive and thrive and do not become extinct.
Area of Work: Education
Addressee: UNFCCC
Paragraph Number: 47
Session: 2 (2003)
Full Text:
The Forum recommends that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change consider the possible establishment of an ad hoc open-ended intersessional working group on indigenous peoples and local communities and climate change, whose objectives would be to study and propose timely, effective and adequate solutions to respond to the urgent situations caused by climate change that indigenous peoples and local communities face. The Forum furthermore recommends that the Convention consider providing necessary funding support to Forum members and indigenous peoples to guarantee their participation and to strengthen their participation.
Area of Work: Environment
Paragraph Number: 20
Session: 7 (2008)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum recommends that the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies, university research centres and relevant United Nations agencies conduct further studies on the impacts of climate change and climate change responses on indigenous peoples who are living in highly fragile ecosystems, such as low-lying coastal areas and small island States; semi-arid and arid lands and dry and sub-humid lands (grasslands); tropical and subtropical forests; and high mountain areas.
Area of Work: Environment
Addressee: Member States, UN systems
Paragraph Number: 47
Session: 4 (2005)
Full Text:
The Forum recognizes that:
(a) The right to education is a key instrument for achieving equitable development and respect for cultural diversity. Education is an investment in the future, a means to reduce poverty and counter discrimination; (b) Indigenous peoples have the right, including treaty rights (as relevant) to quality primary education that is sensitive to their holistic worldviews, languages, traditional knowledge and other aspects of their cultures, which contribute to human dignity, identity, and intercultural dialogue; c) Mother-tongue mediated bilingual education is indispensable for effective learning for indigenous children and for the reduction of dropout rates; (d) Any efforts to achieve Millennium Development Goal 2 are likely to fail if impartial and effective implementation of culturally sensitive educational programs, curricula and actions addressing the needs of indigenous peoples are not undertaken; (e) indigenous children experience particular difficulties relating to access to education of quality and sociocultural relevance at all levels. Obstacles are numerous and complex and include, among others, distance to schools, differences in lifestyles, for example, nomadic and semi-nomadic communities, discrimination, violence, extreme poverty and exclusion; (f) Education can be one of the most important tools for combating prejudice and discrimination. National curricula frequently ignore the cultures, treaties, histories, and spiritual values of indigenous peoples and reinforce stereotypes; (g) In many cases, current criteria to measure the achievement of Goal 2 regarding indigenous education are absent or are based on insufficient indicators which do not reflect indigenous educational specificities and are culturally inappropriate and insensitive
Area of Work: MDGs, Education
Paragraph Number: 20
Session: 10 (2011)
Full Text:
OHCHR, the secretariat of the Permanent Forum, ILO, the World Bank Group and other relevant United Nations entities, including United Nations country teams, should focus on increasing the understanding of indigenous peoples’ underlying material rights to land and the need to give material rights priority over process rights. These agencies should undertake analytical work on how the intensity and exclusivity criteria that are commonly encompassed in domestic property rights systems could be understood in the context of international human rights standards related to indigenous property rights.
Area of Work: Environment
Addressee: IOM, UN system/UN agencies
Paragraph Number: 47
Session: 7 (2008)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum is concerned about the growing impacts of climate change and environmental degradation on the lives and livelihoods of indigenous peoples around the world. The Forum recommends that the International Organization for Migration and other relevant organizations provide technical cooperation and operational assistance to those Governments and communities planning organized migration management solutions for climate change and environmental refugees and migrants, giving priority, according to the principle of free, prior and informed consent, to the assisted voluntary resettlement and reintegration of those indigenous communities whose territories are no longer inhabitable.
Area of Work: Environment
