The Forum is fully aware of the close links between conflict and poverty. Conflicts cause poverty and reverse development. The Forum invites those United Nations agencies, funds and programmes working in areas of conflict to consider the special needs of indigenous peoples in their work.
The Forum requests the Special Rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples to undertake a study on the United Nations decolonization process and on the Special Committee on Decolonization to assess its historical and current impact on the human rights of indigenous peoples of the non-self-governing territories. Furthermore, the Forum requests the Secretary-General to undertake a mid-decade review of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism to determine whether substantial progress has been made in achieving the goals of the Second Decade and to identify proposals for addressing obstacles to achieving the goals of the Second Decade.
Taking into account the Secretary-General’s recommendation to make the twenty-first century "The age of prevention", the wish of the Forum to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and feed into the 10-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action process, the complex cross-cutting nature of issues facing United Nations bodies in formulating appropriate policies, programmes and projects to address the problems of indigenous and tribal communities, and the strong recommendations by indigenous peoples that such policies, programmes and projects should be based on a holistic approach befitting their spiritual values and way of life, the Permanent Forum decides to organize its work for 2005 and onwards around cross-cutting themes that relate directly to the Millennium Development Goals, while considering all the mandated areas of the Permanent Forum.