The Permanent Forum welcomes the initiative of the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to host the International Conference on Biological and Cultural Diversity: Diversity for Development (8-10 June 2010, Montreal, Canada) to develop a joint programme of work on biological and cultural diversity, and requests that future work include broad partnerships with the Permanent Forum, other relevant agencies, indigenous peoples’ organizations and non-governmental organizations
The Permanent Forum welcomes the initiative of the World Bank in compiling and analysing disaggregated data on indigenous peoples, poverty and human development in South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and urges the World Bank to present the results of those studies to the seventh session of the Permanent Forum in 2008.
The Permanent Forum urges the United Nations Population Fund, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and other regional mechanisms, in collaboration with indigenous peoples, to conduct studies on indigenous peoples, urbanization and migration, with an emphasis on indigenous women and youth.
The Forum, recognizing the need for complementarity and coordination of indigenous training and education within the United Nations system, recommends that training and education partners within the United Nations system, in particular the ILO, the Office and other relevant agencies, hold discussions in order to develop a coordinated approach and a common electronic gateway to all education and training opportunities for indigenous peoples within the international system. As the United Nations body for coordination regarding indigenous issues, the Forum will construct the web site of the Forum available for such a gateway.
The Forum recalls its mandate to "prepare and disseminate information on indigenous issues", and invites indigenous peoples’ organizations to consider creative ways of educating and disseminating information on the Forum to indigenous peoples’ organizations and communities, including through art, workshops, radio programmes, posters, indigenous journalism and other culturally appropriate media. To that end, the Forum recommends that the programmes, funds and agencies of the United Nations system allocate appropriate resources for this purpose, assist in the production of such materials, include indigenous professionals in the production of such materials and report to the Forum at its third session on the extent to which they have been able to incorporate these actions into their programmes of work. The Forum also recommends that the United Nations Development Fund for Women allocate funding for capacity-building in connection with the Forum and for special outreach to indigenous women. The Forum furthermore recommends that the United Nations Children’s Fund allocate funding for capacity-building in connection with the Forum and for special outreach to indigenous children and youth.
With regard to the environmental issue of water, the Forum, recognizing the indigenous peoples’ Kyoto water declaration made at the World Water Forum, held in Kyoto, Japan, in March 2003, requests that the Commission on Sustainable Development and other relevant United Nations bodies (i.e., UNEP, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNDP) consider the declaration in their discussions on this theme in 2004.
The Permanent Forum urges Governments and donors to support community-based monitoring and information systems, citizen science and the democratization of information technologies, as complementary to national and global statistical and information systems, and to prioritize capacity-building and funding and for such initiatives.
The Permanent Forum calls upon the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues to organize, by 2021, in-country dialogues that will feed into a global expert group meeting on indigenous peoples and HIV/AIDS, with the aim of proposing key principles of action for HIV/AIDS programming, and urges States, in collaboration with indigenous peoples, to contribute to this initiative.
The Permanent Forum, reaffirming the recommendations on health made at its first, second and third sessions, further recommends that all relevant United Nations entities, especially WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and UNFPA, as well as regional health organizations and Governments, fully incorporate a cultural perspective into health policies, programmes and reproductive health services aimed at providing indigenous women with quality health care, including emergency obstetric care, voluntary family planning and skilled attendance at birth. In the latter context, the roles of traditional midwives should be re-evaluated and expanded so that they may assist indigenous women during their reproductive health processes and act as cultural brokers between health systems and the indigenous communities’ values and world views
The Permanent Forum supports the initiative of OHCHR to develop guidelines for the protection of peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact in the Amazon Region and the Gran Chaco, which are currently under consultation with indigenous organizations and the States concerned. The Permanent Forum recommends that, in developing the guidelines, attention be directed to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, particularly in terms of the right to self-determination. The organizations in closest contact with those indigenous peoples that remain in voluntary isolation or initial contact should be involved in the elaboration of these guidelines.
The Forum expresses its appreciation to the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples for their participation at its third session, and recommends that they pay special attention to the factors contributing to violence against indigenous women, especially domestic violence and sexual abuse.
The Permanent Forum urges African States, in coordination with the African Union, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, to support/organize two regional conferences/seminars in Africa, one for French-speaking States and the other for English-speaking States, to enhance the capacity of indigenous organizations to engage in dialogues with Governments at the country level and to promote an improved understanding of indigenous issues, including through the teaching of indigenous languages at schools with the special adaptation of education to the way of life of nomadic peoples; recognizing and sustaining indigenous knowledge systems and partnerships between States and indigenous peoples on the protection of conservation areas; and inter-agency consultation on poverty reduction strategies and on designing a regional strategy to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.