Noting the widespread malnutrition among indigenous peoples, the Permanent Forum urges the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) to ensure that all interventions by those organizations aimed at reducing this problem in indigenous communities are based on assessments of the structural causes of the problem, including access to land and availability of natural resources. Moreover, methods of interventions should be sensitive to the social fabric and respectful of indigenous peoples’ models of development.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction take the lead, in collaboration with OHCHR, UNFPA and WHO, in conducting an initial study on the global scope of past forced sterilization programmes of indigenous peoples and determine whether such programmes continue to exist, and report to the Forum at its nineteenth session on the progress made.
Consistent with articles 18 and 19 of the United Nations Declaration and in line with the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with the call to “leave no one behind”, the Permanent Forum strongly recommend that States and funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations system ensure the disaggregation of data on the basis of indigenous identifiers/ethnicity and the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples in developing and monitoring national action plans and in all processes relating to the follow-up to and review of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, including at the high-level political forum on sustainable development.
Regarding the negotiations taking place at the sessions of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Permanent Forum reiterates the urgent need to develop an instrument that responds to the current lack of adequate protection of traditional knowledge and recognizes indigenous peoples as equal stakeholders and the legitimate holders of their knowledge. The Forum calls upon the Intergovernmental Committee to fast-track the negotiations and to use its core budget to fund indigenous peoples’ participation in the deliberations.
The Forum recommends that the Global Fund review their funding strategy in order to include access by indigenous non-governmental organizations and health providers for community-based culturally appropriate HIV/AIDS programmes.
The Forum reiterates the recommendations contained in its report on its second session and strongly advises positive consideration to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and UNAIDS joining the Inter-Agency Support Group
The Permanent Forum also recommends that WHO and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) engage in an intersessional round table on the pandemic with Forum members to ensure that ongoing mitigation planning and efforts are uniquely adapted to the needs of indigenous peoples, including by applying intercultural approaches to health, such as those applied by PAHO in the Americas.
The Permanent Forum recommends that Member States and United Nations agencies recognize indigenous peoples as distinct stakeholders and make a specific separate reference to indigenous peoples, and not simply include them under the terms “marginalized and vulnerable groups”, in both the sustainable development goals and the post-2015 development agenda, including the Small Island Developing States process, and that this recommendation, with the specific recognition of indigenous peoples’ views and priorities for development, should be reflected in the goals and targets to be developed, including appropriate indicators and data disaggregation.
The Permanent Forum calls for the implementation on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which gives clear guidance to States on the need for them to minimize childhood exposure to toxic chemicals through water, food, air and other sources of exposure. It is critical that environmental regulators be educated specifically regarding article 24 of the Convention.
The Permanent Forum, noting the significance for indigenous peoples of the negotiations under way at WIPO on intellectual property and genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, strongly encourages representatives of indigenous peoples to participate in those negotiations, consistent with article 18 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues, sponsor an expert group meeting on HIV/AIDS by 2019, which would include the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, to analyse the sociocultural and economic determinants of health for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment in indigenous communities, with the Forum’s collaboration, in order to ensure the realization of target 3.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Permanent Forum reiterates the recommendation contained in paragraph 47 of its report on its seventeenth session and calls upon Member States to begin work on a global, legally binding regime for toxic industrial chemicals and hazardous pesticides under the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade.