The Permanent Forum is very concerned that indigenous peoples continue to report difficulties in participating in UNDP projects and engaging with UNDP offices. The Forum recommends that UNDP improve access to information on the Programme for indigenous peoples and ensure easier access to its staff members in country offices. UNDP should promote mechanisms that ensure a constructive and institutionalized dialogue between indigenous peoples and United Nations country teams at the country level, for example, by establishing advisory boards composed of indigenous representatives who can bring their perspectives to United Nations programming processes and policies.
The Forum recommends that the World Tourism Organization prepare an initial paper on the issue of tourism and indigenous peoples, taking into account the positive and negative impacts, with a view to preparing guidelines on tourism and indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the United Nations system conduct a separate consultation with indigenous peoples at the regional and global levels as an integral and critical part of the processes relating to the post-2015 development agenda.
The Permanent Forum urges the Governments of Canada and the United States to financially support indigenous community education systems and their efforts to protect and perpetuate indigenous languages, on a par with their dominant languages.
Governments should support training in sustainable consumption towards a sustainable lifestyle and follow up initiatives, including networks and smalls grants
The Permanent Forum has decided to appoint members of the Forum, Megan Davis, Simon William M’Viboudoulou, Valmaine Toki, Paul Kanyinke Sena, Edward John, Álvaro Esteban Pop Ac and Raja Devasish Roy, to conduct a study on national constitutions and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with a view to assessing the nature and extent of the inclusion of indigenous peoples’ human rights in national constitutions, with reference to the rights affirmed in the Declaration, to be submitted to the eleventh session of the Permanent Forum in 2012.
The Permanent Forum takes note of the progressive decisions made by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in favour of the collective rights of indigenous peoples. The Forum is concerned about the lack of implementation and urges the Government of Kenya to fully implement its decisions on applications 006/2012 (African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights v. Republic of Kenya) and 276/03 (Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group (on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council) v. Kenya).
A request of the UNPFII and the UN Youth Unit in DESA to continue facilitating the involvement of the Youth Caucus in its sessions.
The Permanent Forum invites Governments, United Nations organizations and their regional offices, universities and research bodies to support the convening of regional workshops and other activities in the Arctic, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific to identify indicators relevant to indigenous peoples’ poverty and well-being, traditional knowledge and biodiversity, with a view to monitoring progress in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Forum decides to devote special attention to the follow-up to global United Nations conferences, and in that regard requests its secretariat to prepare a technical background paper.
The Permanent Forum recommends that United Nations country teams in Asian countries with indigenous populations, in cooperation with indigenous peoples, formulate a matrix of indicators, benchmarks and milestones to assess the outcomes and results of their policies and programmes relevant to indigenous peoples. Furthermore, the Permanent Forum recommends that United Nations agencies and donor agencies expand their funding and technical assistance to support capacity-building of Asian indigenous peoples’ organizations.
During the pandemic, indigenous peoples have been seriously affected by a lack of access to energy, health-care establishments, education centres, infrastructure that supplies clean water, and communication services and information technologies. Governments have made a range of efforts to support economic activity in their responses to the economic impacts of the pandemic. The relaxation of environmental and human rights standards in order to support activities that will promote economic growth, such as logging, mining, large-scale agriculture and various infrastructure and energy projects, threaten indigenous peoples’ territories. The Permanent Forum requests Member States to include indigenous peoples in the preparatory process and the outcome of the high-level dialogue on energy to be held by the General Assembly in September 2021, in order to accelerate action on achieving Goal 7 and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement.