With a view to assessing the effectiveness of the implementation of policies on indigenous peoples, the Permanent Forum recommends to the United Nations entities that carry out free, prior and informed consent processes to develop a system for comprehensively documenting these processes.
The Permanent Forum invites the newly established Facilitative Working Group of the local communities and indigenous peoples platform to collaborate closely with bodies outside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on matters relating to climate change and indigenous peoples, in accordance with its mandate (Conference of the Parties decision 2/CP.24, para. 20).
The Permanent Forum recommends that the organizations and bodies of the United Nations system and Member States organize a regional consultation with indigenous organizations and interested donors to develop a more coordinated, sustainable and longer-term programme in the region which has as its principal objective the strengthening of indigenous organizations so as to ensure that they have the technical capacity to engage with Governments and the international community on human rights.
The Permanent Forum highly appreciates the initiatives undertaken by IFAD to highlight the need to give a high profile to indigenous issues within the organization and globally by nominating an Assistant President on Special Assignment for Indigenous and Tribal Issues. The Permanent Forum recommends that IFAD ensure that the gains made so far are sustained in the future and urges other organizations and international financial institutions to follow the Fund’s example by assigning a person in a senior management position to coordinate indigenous issues within their organization.
The Permanent Forum recommends that IFAD take the lead in a process whose aim would be to generate a global report on the status of indigenous peoples regarding their development with identity and dignity, as a complement to the proposed indigenous peoples’ world status report.
The Permanent Forum urges the organizations and bodies of the United Nations system to focus and coordinate their strategies and programmes in order to deal with the problems faced by indigenous peoples in Africa relevant to the mandate of the Permanent Forum on such issues as economic and social development, education, health, human rights, culture and the environment.
The Permanent Forum expresses its thanks to the Governments of Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Canada, China, the Congo, Denmark, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, the Russian Federation, Spain and the United States, as well as the government of Greenland, for having hosted previous pre-sessional and intersessional meetings of the Forum. The Forum stresses the importance of organizing such pre-sessional and intersessional meetings and reiterates its recommendation that States that have not yet done so consider hosting such meetings in the future. It also requests that the secretariat of the Forum organize pre-sessional meetings for future sessions of the Forum.
The Permanent Forum also appreciates the work of FAO, in collaboration with the Forum, on including the issues of indigenous peoples in the Committee on World Food Security and recommends that FAO continue to collaborate with the Forum to open up spaces for dialogue and participation in other technical committees, such as those on forestry, fisheries and agriculture.
The Permanent Forum recommends United Nations entities that have not done so to incorporate indigenous peoples-driven platforms in order to give advice on and to promote indigenous peoples’ issues, as well as consider the participation of the Permanent Forum together with indigenous peoples in such platforms.
Considering that some indigenous peoples are living in countries that do not have United Nations country offices and lack opportunities to cooperate and coordinate with the United Nations agencies in advancing their rights and well-being, the Permanent Forum invites the United Nations system to cooperate with indigenous peoples in those regions.
As consistently suggested during the dialogue with Member States, the Permanent Forum invites States to consider ways of addressing disputes between them and indigenous peoples. Suggestions included, among others, setting up independent conflict resolution mechanisms to resolve disputes between States and indigenous peoples (in accordance with article 27 of the Declaration and paragraph 21 of the outcome document of the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples), implementing the Forum’s recommendations for better addressing such disputes and increasing the involvement of indigenous peoples in decision-making processes.
The Permanent Forum encourages Member States to review recommendations made at past sessions, renew efforts at their implementation and report on progress made by 2021. It invites the United Nations system to support the States’ efforts in this regard.