The Permanent Forum recognizes the need to better consolidate and coordinate activities and capacity-building regarding indigenous issues at the country and regional levels and recommends that UNDP and the United Nations Development Group inform United Nations resident coordinators, regional directors and United Nations country teams, and establish inter-agency coordination mechanisms at those levels.
The Permanent Forum reiterates its previous recommendations to UNICEF to adopt a policy on indigenous peoples in consultation with indigenous peoples without delay.
Should members of the Forum wish to submit working papers to the Forum under the various areas of its mandate, they are hereby formally recommended to do so.
The Permanent Forum expresses its readiness to examine existing practices and
ways of developing various forms of administrative and territorial autonomy for
indigenous peoples’ communities whose representatives lead a traditional, nomadic
way of life, as part of the development of the guiding principles on indigenous
peoples’ autonomy and self-government as recommended in the study on indigenous
peoples’ autonomies: experiences and perspectives (E/C.19/2020/5). Such work will
be conducted by an online working group of the Permanent Forum. Indigenous
peoples’ organizations, representative decision-making bodies and institutions,
together with United Nations system entities, Member States and other stakeholders,
are invited to contribute financially and practically and to take an active part in the
work of the working group.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Envoy of the Secretary-General on Youth, in cooperation with indigenous young people, urgently address self-harm and suicide among indigenous young people and invites him to inform the Forum on progress in that regard at its fifteenth session.
The Permanent Forum recommends that all indigenous peoples make use, whenever appropriate, of the early warning measures and urgent procedures established by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. These early warning measures and procedures are aimed at preventing existing situations from escalating into conflicts and respond to problems requiring immediate attention to prevent or limit the scale or number of serious violations of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The Forum also recommends that the Committee’s Working Group on Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedures urgently address the serious human rights violations and the criminalization of indigenous peoples in the Amazon in order for the Committee to take effective measures.
The Permanent Forum is deeply concerned that the problems and discrimination facing indigenous children and youth are not reflected in the Millennium Development Goals, and it urges States and United Nations organizations to develop culturally sensitive policies, programmes and projects that fully incorporate indigenous children and youth into achieving the Goals.
As part of the active engagement of IFAD with indigenous peoples’ issues, the Permanent Forum recommends that the Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility be incorporated into the organization’s general budget so as to guarantee sustainability and the transfer of good practices and lessons learned within IFAD programmes and projects. The Permanent Forum also recommends that the facility extend its funding directly to indigenous peoples’ organizations. Support for indigenous peoples’ organizations should have as its point of departure the co-administration and co implementation of the projects.
The Permanent Forum calls upon United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, other multilateral financial institutions and bilateral donors to establish clear policy commitments to protect the ancestral lands of indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum commends States for recognizing the collective rights of indigenous peoples to lands, territories and resources and at the same time urges them to take immediate steps for the implementation of those rights through programmes for mapping, titling or other actions and legislative reforms. The Forum urges States to report to it by its twentieth session on steps taken in that regard.
The Permanent Forum encourages all Member States to contribute to the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations as an essential way to ensure the participation of indigenous peoples in all United Nations meetings and to increase their capacity at the international and local levels.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Government of Paraguay should give priority, in its emergency plans, to the protection of vulnerable indigenous children from practices of forced labour and other forms of exploitation.