The Permanent Forum recommends that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) establish an institutional partnership with indigenous peoples so that they can fully participate in the monitoring and other mechanisms of UNESCO conventions and IFAD projects and programmes that are relevant to indigenous peoples. The Permanent Forum further recommends that UNESCO establish an advisory group of indigenous experts to provide advice.
Governments, the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations should develop programs, in cooperation with indigenous peoples, to build the capacity and awareness of their staff to better understand and address indigenous issues
Assure and support the full participation of indigenous peoples as equal partners in all stages of data collection, including planning, implementation, analysis and dissemination, access and return, with the appropriate resourcing and capacity-building for achieving this objective. Data collection must respond to the priorities and aims of the indigenous communities themselves
The Permanent Forum encourages resident coordinators and United Nations country teams to ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples, including indigenous women and youth, in the preparation of the United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks and country programme action plans.
The Permanent Forum recommends that all United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, as well as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, integrate relevant provisions of the Declaration into their policies, programmes, projects and strategies.
Education in the mother tongue and bilingual education, foremost in primary and secondary schools, lead to effective and long-term successful educational outcomes. The Permanent Forum urges States to fund and implement the Programme of Action for the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, specifically in the following education-related objective. The Forum underlines the need for States to respect and promote indigenous peoples’ definitions of learning and education, founded on the values and priorities of the relevant indigenous peoples. The right to education is independent of State borders and should be expressed by indigenous peoples’ right to freely traverse borders, as supported by articles 9 and 36 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Forum recommends that the Convention on Biological Diversity and other relevant United Nations bodies such as UNEP, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), UNDP, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the World Bank, WIPO, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, support indigenous peoples’ organizations in order to develop capacity on research, work and proposals on human indicators applicable to the implementation of the environmental conventions and the plans and programmes of work of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the adoption of the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources. It requests FAO to give priority to strategic priority No. 6 (support indigenous and local production systems and associated knowledge systems of importance to the maintenance and sustainable use of animal genetic resources), and to further develop relevant approaches to implement it, including rights-based approaches and payment for services that support the custodianship of local breeds by indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum applauds the good work of the nomadic herders project on enhancing the resilience of pastoral ecosystems and livelihoods, led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/GRID-Arendal and the Association of World Reindeer Herders. The Permanent Forum recommends that the Global Environment Facility Council approve the project as a good example of a transboundary project by and for indigenous peoples.
Considering their impact on the sexual health and reproductive rights of indigenous peoples, the Permanent Forum calls, in paragraph 62 of the report, for “a legal review of United Nations chemical conventions, in particular the Rotterdam Convention, to ensure that they are in conformity with international human rights standards, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the announcement by New Zealand to endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the announcement by the United States of America that it will review its position on the Declaration. It also welcomes the indication by Canada in the 2010 Speech from the Throne that it will take steps to endorse the Declaration. The Forum recommends that the United States and Canada expedite their commitments made to endorse the Declaration
The Forum appreciates the preparation by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights of the information note on the ways in which indigenous issues have been addressed in Charter-based mechanisms and treaty bodies. The Forum recommends that the Secretary-General prepare, in several stages, an analytical study on the subject. In the initial stage, the Forum recommends the Secretary-General prepare a study on the ways in which indigenous issues have been addressed in the consideration of reports of States parties submitted under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.