The Permanent Forum recommends that UNDP and other United Nations agencies establish a special programme for indigenous professionals that will serve as an entry point inclusion of these professionals as UNDP staff. This will significantly enrich diversity in human development views and knowledge within the organization.
The Permanent Forum expresses its appreciation to the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) for its training programme established to enhance the conflict prevention and peacebuilding capacities of indigenous peoples’ representatives, which has provided outstanding training for 270 indigenous representatives since 2000, and recommends that this important programme be supported henceforth through the regular budget of the United Nations.
The Permanent Forum invites the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues for the Permanent Forum, Governments and donors to maximize collaboration, avoid duplication and advance joint efforts to strengthen work on data collection and identification of indicators relevant to indigenous peoples, the Millennium Development Goals and the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Permanent Forum encourages Member States with bilateral development agencies to enact, in accordance with the Declaration, policies that ensure the inclusion of indigenous peoples as partners in the development process, with a meaningful role in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all projects that affect their territories, rights and livelihoods
The Permanent Forum encourages the Commission for Social Development to consider indigenous peoples’ issues at the fifty-sixth session of the Commission as part of its agenda related to the 2017-2018 priority theme “Strategies for eradicating poverty to achieve sustainable development for all”.
The Permanent Forum appoints Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim and Vital Bambanze, members of the Forum, to conduct a study on indigenous peoples and resource conflicts in the Sahel and in the Congo Basin, and to present that study to the Forum at its twenty-first session.
The Permanent Forum also welcomes the recent adoption of the United Nations Development Group guidelines for indigenous peoples’ issues, which will bring the United Nations normative framework on indigenous peoples to the field level and contribute to the implementation of the goals and objectives of the Decade and of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Forum encourages the United Nations system to support the Guidelines with a programme of action and calls upon the donor community to provide resources to that effect. The Forum also calls upon the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues to review and revise the Guidelines in light of the adoption of the Declaration.
In this regard, the Permanent Forum recommends that Member States and the United Nations system take due account of the outcome document and the conclusions of the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, to be held in September 2014, given that this process is deeply interrelated with the post-2015 process and will set the context for future work on indigenous peoples’ issues.
The Permanent Forum requests its secretariat to ensure wide circulation of the above-mentioned report and invites States, members of the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues, non-governmental organizations and the private sector, the secretariats of the United Nations Forum on Forests and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to provide comments and additional information and data to both the Special Rapporteur and the secretariat of the Permanent Forum. The contributions can include existing policies, projects and funding related to plantations and forestry, implementation of policies and case studies of good practices.
In the light of the study by Ms. Toki on the relationship between indigenous peoples and the Pacific Ocean and the dire effects of climate change, such as forced relocation and the loss of culture and livelihood, on vulnerable small island Pacific States, the Permanent Forum recommends that United Nations entities, including UN-Oceans, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and UNESCO, in addition to the International Seabed Authority, comply with and implement the relevant articles of the United Nations Declaration (arts. 18, 27 and 32), so as to ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples. This should include meaningful participation, such as dedicated indigenous representation within each of these United Nations entities, and regard for indigenous peoples’ world views.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and other relevant entities coordinate in the formulation of key intercultural standards and indicators of quality of care to be considered in the definition of a future post-2015 goal on universal health coverage that includes the sexual and reproductive health of indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum calls upon States to ensure that racial non discrimination is guaranteed in their constitutions. The term “racial discrimination” means any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life. The Forum calls upon States to adhere to the peremptory norm and the absolute prohibition against racial discrimination as well as all other forms of discrimination, including gender and age.