The Permanent Forum recommends that WHO and FAO, together with the Inter‑agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues, promote dialogue forums at the national and regional levels between government ministries and indigenous peoples to establish culturally relevant strategies for addressing the epidemiological risks and the food and environmental crises resulting from the pandemic, as well as for addressing access to justice and the safeguarding of indigenous peoples’ territorial control.
The Permanent Forum expresses its grave concern about the lack of observance and implementation of indigenous peoples’ rights, as enshrined in the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169), the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This underscores the need for more awareness-raising and capacity-building regarding indigenous peoples’ rights, not only for indigenous peoples themselves, but also for government and justice officials, as well as for private sector actors and civil society at large. In this regard, the Forum welcomes the e-learning course on indigenous peoples’ rights developed by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), with the support of the Expert Mechanism and United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples. The course, which is available on the OHCHR website, is a small but important contribution towards building capacities for the promotion and protection of indigenous peoples’ rights.
The Permanent Forum recalls that, more than 10 years ago, the International Fund for Agricultural Development established an indigenous forum, which the Forum has repeatedly recognized as a good practice and recommended that other United Nations entities should follow. However, despite these recommendations, other entities have not done so, with the notable exception of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Forum reiterates its recommendation that United Nations entities should incorporate indigenous-driven platforms in order to give advice on and promote indigenous peoples’ issues and should consider the participation of the Permanent Forum together with indigenous peoples in such platforms.