The Permanent Forum recognizes the crucial role of academia in researching, documenting and teaching indigenous languages. It encourages UNESCO to duly consider and accept UNESCO Chair applications by universities and research institutions with a view to establishing UNESCO Chairs on indigenous languages and other educational initiatives that support the goals of the International Decade.
The Permanent Forum greatly welcomes the new global indigenous peoples’ partnership initiative that UNDP is developing with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and OHCHR to promote the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ILO Convention No. 169. The Permanent Forum hopes to support that initiative, working in cooperation with other actors, by providing advice during the initial phase as well as throughout the process.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the President of the General Assembly take immediate steps to ensure the full, equal, direct and effective participation of indigenous peoples throughout all aspects and processes of the high-level plenary meeting/World Conference on Indigenous Peoples in order to achieve an action-oriented, concise, inclusive, constructive and comprehensive outcome that will genuinely promote the full and effective implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (art. 18).
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Commission on the Status of Women consider the empowerment of indigenous women as a priority theme of its sixty-first session, in 2017, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration.
In “a spirit of partnership and mutual respect”, the Permanent Forum emphasizes the important standards set out in articles 18, 19 and 41 of the Declaration. Article 18 provides that “indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters that would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures”, and article 19 provides that “States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them”. Such equal, direct and meaningful participation by indigenous peoples throughout all stages of the World Conference is essential for the international community to achieve a constructive and comprehensive outcome that will genuinely improve the status and conditions of indigenous peoples worldwide.
The Permanent Forum recalls General Assembly resolution 66/296 and recommends that the President of the sixty-eighth session of the Assembly organize an informal interactive hearing, back-to-back with, but separate from, the thirteenth session of the Forum. This will ensure that those representatives of indigenous peoples who are attending the Forum are also able to participate in the informal interactive hearing without the need to return to New York at a later date and incur further travel and other related expenditures.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States and the United Nations system, including United Nations country teams, provide support, including funding, for the efforts of indigenous peoples’ institutions to preserve and revitalize their languages, with the particular goal of fluency. Such efforts may include the sharing of positive experiences and the establishment of informal networks or caucuses involved in the promotion and revitalization of indigenous languages, as well as the use of information and communications technology in indigenous languages. It is important that States provide adequate funding for language revitalization and the preservation of cultural heritage as it relates to indigenous languages. In addition, States should facilitate funding for indigenous language projects from external donors, including the private sector, in accordance with law.
In the absence of in-person sessions of the Permanent Forum for two years, the Forum expresses its appreciation of the online dialogues held with United Nations funds, programmes and specialized agencies and welcomes the continuation of this good practice in the coming years, beyond the effects of the pandemic. The Permanent Forum expresses its appreciation to the secretariat of the Forum for facilitating these dialogues and invites the secretariat to continue to do so.
The Permanent Forum recalls the relevance of article 13 (1) of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and encourages States to step up efforts, in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples, to advance the realization of the linguistic and cultural rights of Indigenous Peoples, including through the right to education in Indigenous Peoples’ languages in the context of the International Decade.
The Forum recommends that executive heads of United Nations agencies, funds and programmes that have not yet done so adopt policies on indigenous peoples and designate focal points for addressing indigenous issues relevant to each respective agency’s mandate in order to facilitate the mainstreaming of indigenous issues within the United Nations system.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the resolution of the seventeenth Ibero-American summit of Heads of State which calls for a world conference on indigenous peoples, to be organized by the United Nations, and urges States to support this initiative at the General Assembly level.
The Permanent Forum thus welcomes FAO efforts to develop a policy on indigenous peoples’ issues which will help organization staff to work with indigenous peoples in a more systematic way. With a view to strengthening FAO work with indigenous peoples, the Permanent Forum encourages the organization to finalize the draft policy as soon as possible and to submit it to senior management for approval.