The Forum recommends that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, United Nations agencies and other relevant bodies provide more funds, through appropriate means, to help indigenous peoples for education, in particular, emphasizing the importance of bilingual and inter-cultural training for indigenous persons. Such funds should be used to facilitate the educational exchanges between indigenous peoples and others in order to make contributions to the cultural diversity of the world, as well as to preserve indigenous peoples’ cultural heritage.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the lively and analytical dialogue that emerged from the half-day discussion on the African region and encourages the United Nations Development Group to facilitate further dialogue between States and indigenous peoples at the African continental level to foster better understanding of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the commitments to indigenous peoples that Member States have made. Within this framework, capacity-building at the national level should be enhanced.
The Permanent Forum calls for the cooperation of all States, indigenous peoples, the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations in its task of ensuring that the Declaration reaches indigenous peoples in their communities by appropriate dissemination of the text in indigenous peoples’ own languages.
The Permanent Forum recommends that national and transnational corporations adhere to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in order to ensure protection of the rights of indigenous human rights defenders.
The Permanent Forum recognizes that, owing to historical and ongoing discriminatory practices in the delivery of healthcare, including in the administration of vaccines, there is distrust that needs to be acknowledged and addressed by governments. Therefore, the Forum recommends that governments collaborate with indigenous peoples’ representatives and leaders, provide culturally appropriate information in indigenous peoples’ languages, engage with indigenous healthcare practitioners and support indigenous peoples’ organizations that are already providing pandemic-related support in their communities.
In the light of the emerging international legal framework for local communities, the Permanent Forum recommends that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) prepare, in consultation with other relevant United Nations entities, including the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and before 2022, a comparative legal study that analyses the rights of indigenous peoples and the emerging rights of local communities.
The Permanent Forum decides to appoint as Special Rapporteur Ms Tonya Gonnella Frichner, a member of the Forum to conduct a preliminary study on the impact of the international legal construct known as the Doctrine of Discovery on Indigenous Peoples that has served as the foundation of the violation of their human rights and to report thereon to the Forum at its ninth session, in 2010.
Recalling that the Human Rights Council will assume, review and, where necessary, improve and rationalize all mandates, mechanisms, functions and responsibilities of the Commission on Human Rights in order to maintain a system of special procedures, expert advice and complaint procedures; and recalling also that the Council shall complete the review within one year after the holding of its first session, the Permanent Forum strongly urges the Council to ensure the full participation of representatives of indigenous peoples in that review process. The Permanent Forum further urges the Council to maintain and improve mechanisms, mandates, special procedures, expert advice mechanisms and complaint procedures relevant and pertaining to the promotion and protection of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum recommends that IFAD develop a stronger focus on issues relating to land and territory and actively promote indigenous peoples’ rights to land.
Recalling paragraph 40 of its report on its sixteenth session (E/2017/43-E/C.19/2017/11), the Permanent Forum calls on Governments in the Arctic, Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation, Central Asia and Transcaucasia, along with academics, to take appropriate measures to introduce the endangered languages of their regions into educational practices and include the learning of those languages in curricula at all levels of educational system, when requested by indigenous people.
The Forum recommends that courts and judicial bodies take urgent step to ensure the protection of indigenous peoples from threats of the use of physical violence by Governments or paramilitary groups controlled by Governments and non-State actors
While the concept of indigenous peoples in Africa has been conceptualized and adopted by African Union bodies, including at the Heads of State summits, there remains a need to raise awareness of indigenous peoples on the continent and for robust and effective measures, including legislative measures, to ensure recognition of and respect for their human rights. Likewise, while the rights of indigenous peoples have been supported in African courts and in decisions by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, gaps in implementation remain widespread. The Permanent Forum urges the concerned States to implement the decision of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, including in the Endorois case; the order of provisional measures of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the Ogiek case; and the decision of the High Court of Botswana in the case concerning the Kalahari Game Reserve. These cases are important because they contribute to the development of jurisprudence on the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.