The Permanent Forum recommends that FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) provide special attention and support to food sovereignty and security concerns of indigenous peoples through thematic studies, the adoption of participatory methodologies, and technical and financial assistance.
Indigenous peoples have a profound relationship with their environment. This includes their distinct rights to water. The Permanent Forum urges States to guarantee those rights, including the right to access to safe, clean, accessible and affordable water for personal, domestic and community use. Water should be treated as a social and cultural good, and not primarily as an economic good. The manner in which the right to water is realized must be sustainable for present and future generations. Moreover, indigenous peoples’ access to water resources on their ancestral lands must be protected from encroachment and pollution. Indigenous peoples must have the resources to design, deliver and control their access to water.
The Permanent Forum urges Member States to include indigenous peoples’ rights in the outcomes of the 2019 Climate Summit called for by the Secretary- General, which will be held on 23 September 2019. The Forum also recommends that States, the United Nations system, indigenous peoples’ organizations and other partners secure funding to ensure the adequate participation of indigenous peoples at the Summit and at the preparatory meetings.
The Permanent Forum reiterates its grave concerns about the situation of indigenous human rights defenders who continue to be harassed, criminalized, prosecuted or even killed for exercising their legitimate rights to protect their lands, territories and resources, especially in the context and activities of extractive industries. The Forum calls upon Member States to take a zero-tolerance approach to violence against indigenous human rights defenders, to develop and implement all measures necessary to respect and protect indigenous human rights defenders, to duly investigate any act against them and to prosecute those responsible to the full extent of the law.
Furthermore, States should strengthen measures, systems and resources to effectively address all forms of violence against indigenous women, such as female genital mutilation; child marriage; sexual abuse; forced labour; modern slavery; domestic, institutional and political violence, including in the context of forced displacement; sexual exploitation; trafficking; armed conflict; and the militarization of indigenous lands and territories.
The Forum recommends that UNICEF consider the appointment of a goodwill ambassador of indigenous children and youth to raise public awareness and that it urge all UNICEF ambassadors to pay attention to the specific problems of indigenous children and youth.
The Permanent Forum requests that UNICEF, when completing its strategic policy framework on indigenous peoples, include indigenous youth in the design of the policy. In addition, particular attention is needed to reflect the diversity among indigenous children and to focus on vulnerable groups, such as victims of human trafficking and child pornography, as well as groups facing manifold discrimination based on gender, disability or sexual orientation.
To ensure that the concerns and priorities of indigenous women are properly taken into account, the Forum urges States:
a. To take concrete steps to increase the participation of indigenous women in governance and decision-making structures at all levels;
b. To clearly identify and define the issues and needs of indigenous women, taking into account regional and local cultural differences;
c. To develop and strengthen structures and mechanisms for the advancement of indigenous women within the wider agenda for the advancement of women; to clearly define their mandate by taking into account the holistic and cross-cutting nature of indigenous women’s issues; to allocate appropriate resources to those institutions; and to provide support from the national political leadership to those structures;
d. To ensure the implementation of international human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, regarding indigenous women, and to integrate those instruments into the formulation of a coherent national public policy for indigenous women (including legal frameworks, budget allocations and specific programmes and projects addressing indigenous women’s issues);
e. To ensure equal access of indigenous women to decision-making and governmental bodies, political parties, judiciary, trade unions etc.;
f. To lend support to NGOs (both international and national) dealing with issues involving indigenous women;
g. To increase indigenous women’s capacity for decision-making and political participation, and to ensure that adequate numbers of indigenous women are placed in positions of political leadership as well as in governance and public administration.
The Permanent Forum calls on Member States, UNDP and other relevant organizations to effectively involve indigenous peoples in the review processes of the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals at the national and local levels and to ensure that disaggregated data on how the Goals are achieved in indigenous peoples territories be included.
The human rights-based approach to development should be operationalized by States, the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations, inlcuding the international financial institutions, and should be the framework underpinning the Millennium Development Goals and poverty reduction strategies, programmes and activities. The recognition of indigenous peoples as distinct peoples and the respect for their individual and collective human rights, rights to lands and territories and sustainable use of natural resources are crucial for achieving a just and sustainable solution to the widespread poverty in their midst. Relevant international treaties, such as International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 169, common article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which declares that "no people shall be deprived of its own means of subsistence", as well as bilateral State-indigenous treaties or accords, should be implemented to ensure compliance and implementation
The Permanent Forum recommends that joint regional and/or thematic preparatory conferences, workshops or other events be organized with the support of Member States, United Nations agencies, funds and programmes and indigenous peoples, with the full participation of indigenous peoples and Member States, as well as the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Permanent Forum.
The Permanent Forum recommends to the President of the sixty-eighth session of the General Assembly the continuation of the practice, established during the sixty-sixth session of the Assembly, of appointing a State representative and an indigenous peoples’ representative to conduct inclusive informal consultations on his behalf in order to build consensus on the themes of the round table and panel discussions and the content of the outcome document of the World Conference, as well as to ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples in the process.