The Permanent Forum urges States, United Nations agencies and indigenous peoples’ organizations to collaborate with UN-Habitat and other United Nations agencies in their development of policy guidelines for local authorities on urban indigenous issues.
Taking into account the Secretary-General’s recommendation to make the twenty-first century "The age of prevention", the wish of the Forum to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and feed into the 10-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action process, the complex cross-cutting nature of issues facing United Nations bodies in formulating appropriate policies, programmes and projects to address the problems of indigenous and tribal communities, and the strong recommendations by indigenous peoples that such policies, programmes and projects should be based on a holistic approach befitting their spiritual values and way of life, the Permanent Forum decides to organize its work for 2005 and onwards around cross-cutting themes that relate directly to the Millennium Development Goals, while considering all the mandated areas of the Permanent Forum.
The Permanent Forum urges States parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to seriously consider the recommendations of the above-mentioned international expert group meeting.
The Forum recommends that the United Nations Environment Programme report on the feasibility of developing mechanisms for indigenous peoples to participate in the persistent organic pollutants global monitoring programme’s evaluation process under the Stockholm Convention. The Forum also welcomes the key findings of the UNEP global mercury assessment, and recommends that the Economic and Social Council recommend that UNEP take immediate action on mercury contamination and work towards initiating a global legally binding instrument and other measures at the next UNEP Governing Council meeting of environmental ministers, to be held in the Republic of Korea in 2005.
The Permanent Forum encourages Member States to ensure a stronger presence and stronger participation during all meetings organized by the Permanent Forum and the Secretariat.