The Permanent Forum reiterates its previous recommendations that address the alarming number of suicides among indigenous youth. The Forum encourages community organization for safe spaces and low-threshold health services, respecting non-discrimination, in particular where discrimination based on ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation is concerned. The United Nations system, in particular the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), should emphasize the provision of mental health services, with particular efforts to address suicide among indigenous youth.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the lively and analytical dialogue that emerged from the half-day discussion on the African region and encourages the United Nations Development Group to facilitate further dialogue between States and indigenous peoples at the African continental level to foster better understanding of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the commitments to indigenous peoples that Member States have made. Within this framework, capacity-building at the national level should be enhanced.
The Permanent Forum urges developed countries to adopt national processes to implement the Goals with the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples within those countries.