Welcome to the United Nations
Addressee: Donor agencies, UNDG, UN system/UN agencies
Full Text
The Permanent Forum welcomes the United Nations Development Group guidelines on indigenous peoples’ issues, and encourages United Nations agencies to actively disseminate, promote and implement those guidelines, particularly among their country offices. In that regard, the Forum urges the Development Group to give priority to the promotion, use and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the most universal, comprehensive and fundamental instrument on indigenous peoples’ rights, and to fully reflect this in the next edition of the Group’s guidelines. The Forum also recommends that donor agencies consider providing financial assistance to implement the guidelines.
Responses
The IASG reports on the establishment of a management committee to coordinate the plan of action for the roll-out and implementation of teh Guidelines. The IASG also reiterated its commitment to further implement the plan of action for the roll-out and implementation of the United Nations Development Group guidelines on indigenous peoples’ issues. In the light of the recommendations of the Permanent Forum on the guidelines in paragraphs 61 and 103 of the Forum’s report on its seventh session (E/2008/43), the Group will consider pursuing relevant editing of the guidelines through the appropriate procedures.
Several agencies also cooperated to develop a resource kit on indigenous peoples' issues. Financial assistance for the implementation has so far been received from IFAD and the Government of Finland.
OHCHR reports: 12. In its efforts to integrate the rights of indigenous peoples into the country programmes of its field presences, the Office continues to provide training to its own staff working in the field. It organized the first pilot training workshop in Nepal in May 2007 for staff responsible for country engagement in Nepal, Afghanistan and Cambodia. The second workshop, which was held in Addis Ababa in November 2008, included staff from OHCHR country offices in Togo and Uganda, as well as other field presences, including human rights components of peacekeeping operations and human rights advisers from the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Cameroon, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, and also staff from the Regional Office for Eastern Africa in Addis Ababa. The training provided information on international standards, mechanisms and national developments relating to indigenous peoples. It also identified the main concerns and aspirations of indigenous peoples of the region and of the challenges in implementing change on the ground, and increased understanding of how to advance the rights of these groups through programme planning, implementation and evaluation, drawing on the experiences of the participants. The participants also discussed partnership opportunities with the United Nations system and civil society organizations.13. In the same vein, and promoting a “one United Nations system approach” to addressing indigenous peoples’ issues, the OHCHR Regional Office for South-East Asia, in cooperation with the UNDP Regional Centre in Bangkok’s Regional Initiative on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Development (RIPP), held the first interactive regional dialogue on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the mechanisms on the promotion and protection of the rights of indigenous peoples and their relevance for United Nations work in South-EastAsia in Bangkok on 28 and 29 January 2009. United Nations experts participating in the dialogue included Vicky Tauli Corpuz, Chairperson of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, Virginia Dandan, member of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and John Bernhard Henriksen, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Participants in the two-day dialogue included the United Nations resident coordinators/UNDP resident representatives and other United Nations representatives from Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and specialized agencies with regional presence in Bangkok. The aim of the dialogue was to contextualize the content of article 42 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which calls on the United Nations system, including at the country level, to promote respect for and full application of the provisions of the Declaration and follow up its effectiveness.
OHCHR field presences are also organizing inter-agency meetings to promote knowledge and understanding of the Declaration in order to ensure that internal policies properly reflect standards on indigenous peoples’ rights and improve integration of indigenous peoples’ rights into operational programming. National human rights institutions are also key partners because they operate at the domestic level and can articulate indigenous issues within national priorities.
Final Report of UNPFII Session 7 (2008)
Area of Work
