The Permanent Forum recommends that States discontinue all sedentarization and other programmes that coerce indigenous peoples to forsake shifting cultivation for other modes of cultivation without their free, prior and informed consent. Alternative modes of cultivation ensure food sovereignty, livelihood security, health security, educational security and forest conservation and other safeguards.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States: ensure that the collection of statistical data be disaggregated by sex and ethnicity; discourage monitoring that is focused only on national averages; ensure indigenous peoples’ and indigenous women’s effective participation in all stages of the preparation, coordination and implementation of data collection; develop a proper system of indicators in partnership with indigenous peoples and women; and enable a measurement of progress in the different areas.
The Permanent Forum congratulates IFAD for the work undertaken in India on disaggregating the human development index and associated development indicators for indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. It further recommends that the Fund, in collaboration with the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and other appropriate organizations, undertake similar work in any developing country where existing data allow for estimates of disaggregated development indicators.
It is important to recognize that indigenous peoples themselves must claim ownership of their languages and direct the revitalization efforts of the languages, while States should support these efforts and facilitate the transmission of the languages by parents and grandparents to the younger generations.
The Forum invites the Economic and Social Council and the regional commissions to present reports on the economic situation, scenarios and impacts of free-trade policies, especially the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, with emphasis on indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum encourages international financial institutions to establish policy mechanisms and programme frameworks requiring corporations to comply with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which were unanimously endorsed by the Human Rights Council in 2011, in addition to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, International Labour Organization Convention No. 169, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
The Permanent Forum commends existing small-grant schemes and programmes, since they often enable indigenous peoples’ organizations to play an active role in implementing the recommendations of the Forum. The Forum encourages the United Nations system to develop small-grant schemes and to increase the level of funding aimed directly at indigenous peoples and also to continue establishing mechanisms to ensure that they effectively reach and benefit indigenous peoples at the local level and provide funds directly to indigenous organizations for socioculturally appropriate project implementation.
UNESCO should provide technical assistance for the elaboration of national and regional programs and projects on developing culturally relevant curricula and educational materials as well as pedagogy to improve the access to and quality of indigenous education in all countries with indigenous peoples
The Permanent Forum urges States to recognize indigenous peoples’ customary laws on genetic resources and traditional knowledge and to consider the development of sui generis systems based on such customary laws, as appropriate, for the protection of traditional knowledge and access and benefit-sharing of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.
The Permanent Forum calls on UNEP to conduct a fast track assessment of short-term drivers of climate change, specifically black carbon, with a view to initiating negotiation of an international agreement to reduce emissions of black carbon.
The Forum recommends that UNICEF prepare a report on indigenous children who have limited or no access to direct health-care services, including recommendations to improve health-care access.
The Permanent Forum encourages APG to continue to give priority to its endeavours to eliminate the servitude and contemporary forms of slavery to which families and communities in Santa Cruz, especially in Alto Parapetí, and in Chuquisaca, are subjected. The Permanent Forum encourages APG, as the organization that represents the Guaraní people in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, to continue to give priority to combating these extremely serious human rights violations as part of its broader programme of reconstitution of the Guaraní people.