Welcome to the United Nations
Addressee: OHCHR, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, and WIPO
Full Text
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in cooperation with the Permanent Forum develop a coherent and strategic plan of action in Africa in cooperation with indigenous peoples and their representative organizations, and that the implementation of the programme of the Office of the High Commissioner to strengthen capacity to protect and advocate for the human rights of indigenous peoples be linked to other United Nations bodies, notably the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), UNESCO and others.
Responses
OHCHR is preparing a plan of action, which will be coordinated by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Commission’s Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities in Africa. Consultations with African organizations are planned for the first half of 2007 as well as activities to promote dialogue between indigenous representatives and States with respect to the declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. Additional information will be provided at the seventh session of the Permanent Forum. a) UNESCO is in contact with the OHCHR about the preparations of the May 2007 meeting of the African Human Rights Commission, notably the organization of a roundtable on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. (b) UNESCO has futhermore reinforced its collaboration with the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordination Committee (IPACC), which recently established official relations with UNESCO. The collaboration currently focuses on participatory cultural mapping in Africa to foster indigenous peoples’ capacity and participation in protecting and promoting their biological and cultural resources. A special effort is made to exchange information with partner agencies active in this area, IFAD and UNEP. (c) UNESCO is in the process of creating a Southern African Regional Centre for Peace, Culture and Security Studies, which will promote and create an understanding of intercultural dialogue, cultural pluralism, and cultural diversity as a vital means of facilitating mutual understanding, promoting peace and stability in Southern Africa. Indigenous knowledge systems and peace will be a central area of focus of the new centre. (d) The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning carried out a comprehensive stocktaking on bilingual education and the use of local languages (most of them indigenous languages), covering 25 African countries, which was shared with Ministries, NGOs and partner agencies at the AEA (Association for the Development of Education in Africa) biennial meeting in March 2006 in Libreville, Gabon. At the country level, UNESCO has become the focal point for indigenous issues in the UN country team in Tanzania. In Cameroon, UNESCO works closely with UNICEF in the field of education for indigenous children. UNESCO is, furthermore, implementing a project on the promotion and safeguarding of the oral traditions of the AKA Pygmies in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. UNESCO Kinshasa is developing a strategy for the integration of Pygmy communities, which is focused on advocacy for their civil rights and citizenship, in partnership with the relevant indigenous organizations, civil society and parliament members. The strategy is based on a study entitled Situation des “autochthones” Pygmees (Batwa) en Republique Democratique du Congo: Enjeux de droits humains, published in November 2005 by the UNESCO chair at the University of Kinshasa with the support of UNESCO.
Final Report of UNPFII Session 5 (2006)
Area of Work
