The Permanent Forum urges all States to substantially increase the human, financial and technical resources made available to implement the Declaration, in accordance with article 39 thereof, and to overcome the remaining gaps between the formal recognition of indigenous peoples and the implementation of their rights.
The Permanent Forum notes the progress made in promoting indigenous peoples’ rights through the Programme to Promote ILO Convention No. 169 (PRO-169). The Permanent Forum urges ILO to maintain and strengthen this important project/programme.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the efforts undertaken to develop the indicators of sustainability and well-being of indigenous peoples should be continued and supported by States, the United Nations system and intergovernmental bodies. This will lead to the establishment of headline indicators to measure and represent the goals and aspirations of indigenous peoples. These initiatives should lead to the creation of an indigenous peoples development index, which the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) would adopt as a project to be included in future issues of the Human Development Report.
The Permanent Forum takes note of the determination of IFAD — for which it congratulates the Fund — to identify indigenous peoples as a specific target group within the agency’s strategic framework, which, in a significant way, has consolidated and legitimized indigenous peoples’ issues in its work with its partners, other organizations and States. The Permanent Forum finds that identifying indigenous peoples as a specific target group is a standard-setting approach, to be duplicated by the United Nations and other international agencies. It is recommended that IFAD maintain its strong focus on indigenous peoples’ issues in the formulation of the new institutional strategic framework, which is due to commence soon.
The Permanent Forum, the expert mechanism on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people should evaluate whether existing and proposed climate change policies and projects comply with the standards set by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These bodies, together with the members of the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues, should collaborate with States and indigenous peoples to effectively ensure that the implementation of the Declaration is central to the design and implementation of climate change policies and programmes.
With a view to establishing a partnership with the United Nations Forum on Forests to work in the area of traditional forest-related knowledge and social and cultural aspects of forests pertaining to indigenous peoples, the Forum appoints Pavel Sulyandziga, member of the Forum, as Special Rapporteur to work with the United Nations Forum on Forests, without financial implications, and to report on that subject to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at its fifth session
The global engagement of indigenous peoples at the international level has led to some positive institutional developments, including the establishment of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples can play an important role in the fight against climate change. Member States and United Nations entities should ensure that any activities related to the use of the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples respect indigenous peoples’ own protocols and consent agreements for managing access to their traditional knowledge. Strengthening and ensuring the full participation of indigenous peoples at all levels is also critical for the design and implementation of climate policies, plans, programmes and projects at the local, national and global levels.
The Permanent Forum calls for heightened attention to be paid to diabetes and other non communicable diseases by WHO, PAHO and States, including at the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, to be held in 2014, and calls upon these parties to discuss issues relating to indigenous health and formulate an action plan with particular focus on improving prevention and access to the care of diabetes and non-communicable diseases.
The Permanent Forum highlights the activities of those States that have undertaken or are currently undertaking constitutional revision processes to strengthen constitutional provisions on human rights, pluriculturalism and juridical pluralism, among others, and also welcomes those States that are in the midst of ongoing constitutional revision or reform processes. The Forum calls upon all relevant States to review and revise their constitutions and legal frameworks to comprehensively recognize the human rights of indigenous peoples. The Forum recommends that the process of constitutional revision in Member States should be driven by indigenous peoples.
The Forum welcomes the inclusion in the 2003 Ibero-American Summit of a focus on indigenous children, and recommends that UNICEF report to the Forum on the results of the Summit in that area, and to indicate how lessons can be learned and policy approaches improved concerning indigenous children in other parts of the world with indigenous peoples, specifically Asia and Africa.
The Permanent Forum recommends that UNESCO, with the participation of indigenous peoples, urgently declare as the organization’s priority the preservation, revitalization and promotion of indigenous languages. UNESCO is also urged to initiate international processes for the establishment of international standards on the preservation of indigenous languages. In particular, the Forum recommends that UNESCO collaborate with efforts led by indigenous peoples and others to map indigenous languages, such as the Endangered Languages Project.
Given the large number of indigenous migrants within and beyond national borders and the particular vulnerability of indigenous women migrants, as well as the lack of adequate data and attention to their problems, the Forum recommends launching a new initiative involving various stakeholders, including the Inter-Agency Support Group, the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in order to face this urgency. The Forum recommends, as a first step, the convening of a workshop on the theme "Migration of indigenous women" in order to highlight the urgency and scale of the issue, including the alarming trend of trafficking indigenous women within and across national borders, and the development of recommendations and guidelines for addressing the problems faced by indigenous migrant women. Participants to the workshop should be a selected number of members of the Forum, relevant United Nations departments, agencies, funds and programmes, and experts from indigenous organizations,
NGOs, intergovernmental organizations, Governments and academia. The objectives of the workshop should be:
a.To underscore the urgency and scale of the issue;
b. To highlight and address the lack of reliable data on the issue and to promote the systematic collection of data (of both quantitative and qualitative nature) by relevant United Nations and other intergovernmental entities, Governments, NGOs, indigenous organizations, and academia;
c. To review and analyse existing data;
d. To provide a report, including recommendations, to the Forum.