The Permanent Forum urges all Member States and United Nations agencies and country teams to initiate indigenous human rights training and education programmes in their institutions and activities, in particular the existing and emerging international jurisprudence on the human rights and standards contained in the Declaration and their application and relevance at the national and local levels.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States formally recognize shifting cultivation as a traditional occupation for indigenous peoples that is closely related to their social and cultural identity and integrity and take effective measures to stop all discriminatory acts targeted at indigenous peoples’ practice of shifting cultivation in line with the provisions of ILO Conventions Nos. 169 and 111, ILO Recommendation No. 104 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, including through the delineation and the titling of the territories and lands concerned.
The Forum also decides to give ongoing priority to two other cross-cutting issues: a. Data collection and segregation as a follow-up of recommendations by the technical workshop on data collection; b. Human rights. In collaboration with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The Permanent Forum notes the general capacity-building efforts on access and benefit-sharing in the African region carried out under Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) of Germany and encourages further efforts to bolster indigenous participation in those workshops and also in developing workshops specifically for indigenous peoples and local communities.
The Forum recommends that United Nations agencies, funds and programmes strengthen their work on migration and its effects on indigenous peoples, and develop policies and outreach programmes for indigenous migrant and urban peoples.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Inter-American Development Bank reconsider its policy and strategies so as to ensure the inclusion of representatives of indigenous peoples in an advisory body and incorporate the right of indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent, without any qualifications, into safeguard policies and project-related instruments.
The Permanent Forum recommends that FAO, in 2014, the International Year of Family Farming, organize and host an expert seminar on culture, food sovereignty and traditional livelihoods to feed into the post-2015 process. The seminar should include the participation of an elder, an adult and a young person from each of the seven sociocultural regions of the Forum.
In order to improve the implementation of its recommendations, the Permanent Forum calls upon United Nations agencies to ensure that there are systems in place to share information with and distribute information to indigenous peoples at the local level so that they have the opportunity to engage with the work of the United Nations at the country level and express their views and concerns and implement their policies. The Forum also encourages indigenous peoples’ organizations to engage actively with the United Nations system at the country level and urges United Nations resident coordinators’ offices to engage with indigenous peoples’ organizations and representatives and ensure their active participation and consultation in policy dialogues at the national level.
The Forum recommends that States reduce the rates of illiteracy, lack of schooling, truancy and dropouts and raise the rates of completed primary education through literacy campaigns and the design of indigenous, bilingual, inter-cultural educative and extramural models in the States where indigenous peoples live.
The Forum urges the Global Alliance For Vaccination Initiatives (GAVI) to sponsor a workshop and also urges UNDP to co-sponsor a workshop to expand global programmes for immunization and vaccination of indigenous women and children and to assess the need for safety protocols relating thereto. The Permanent Forum recommends that its focal point in health and a representative of the Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus on Health be invited to attend and be provided the means to participate.
The Permanent Forum urges States and bodies and organizations of the United Nations system, including the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Environment Assembly, to include indigenous peoples in a fully meaningful and effective manner in decision-making processes in all areas aimed at tackling marine litter and plastic pollution, and landscape/ecosystem degradation, including in programmes and partnerships and in the future negotiations of international instruments. Such efforts should include recognition of the traditional knowledge, practices and innovations of indigenous peoples, in particular indigenous women, in plans and actions to restore landscapes and ecosystems and to address marine litter and plastic pollution.
Calling attention to the high rates of suicide among indigenous youth in some countries, the Permanent Forum reiterates its call for States and relevant national aboriginal health bodies to convene a meeting to assess the root causes of indigenous youth suicide and to formulate preventive strategies. The Forum reiterates its call on UNICEF and WHO to convene a meeting on youth suicide.