The Permanent Forum calls upon United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, other multilateral financial institutions and bilateral donors to establish clear policy commitments to protect the ancestral lands of indigenous peoples.
Celebrating 22 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is the first legally binding international instrument affirming human rights for all children, the Permanent Forum welcomes the adoption of the third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure, enabling individual claims and the use of the examination process, and urges States to accede to this important instrument regarding children in the most vulnerable situations, many of whom are indigenous, to allow them access to recourse and redress.
In the context of the United Nations system-wide coherence, in particular gender equality architecture reform, the Permanent Forum recommends that States and the United Nations system ensure the inclusion of the priorities and demands of indigenous women.
The Forum recommends that ILO, with the participation of interested parties, including indigenous peoples' organizations (the United Nations system, the International Finance Corporation, the European Bank for Rural Development) conduct a workshop on capacity-building for the sustainable development of indigenous communities to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals and targets are implemented in a timely and appropriate manner for indigenous peoples
There generally appears to be positive recognition of the approach to Goal 1 suggested by the Permanent Forum, while there has been less attention paid to Goal 2. In both areas, there appears to be an increase in the number of projects being implemented in Latin America, with limited projects in Asia, and one or two projects in Africa. This is particularly the case under Goal 2, where there is a general lack of reporting from Asia or Africa on intercultural/bilingual education projects or programmes in this area.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the study to examine challenges in the African region to protecting traditional knowledge, genetic resources and folklore prepared by Paul Kanyinke Sena (E/C.19/2014/2), acknowledges the support provided by the WIPO secretariat towards the completion of that study and, in this regard, calls upon the WIPO secretariat to extend its outreach and awareness-raising activities in respect of indigenous peoples, with a particular focus on African indigenous peoples so as to increase their awareness of WIPO processes, and to further develop culturally appropriate training and capacity-building materials for indigenous peoples consistent with article 41 of the Declaration.
As a matter of indigenous human rights and consistent with article 18 of the United Nations Declaration, previous Permanent Forum recommendations and the outcome document of the World Conference, with particular consideration of paragraph 33, the right to participate in decision-making is highly relevant to fast-approaching and pivotal multilateral negotiations. In this regard, the Forum urgently requests all States, United Nations agencies and high-level representatives of the United Nations system to ensure the direct participation of indigenous peoples in the multilateral negotiations referred to below. The Forum also requests that all those actors advocate and ensure that there is explicit reference to indigenous peoples and their distinct human rights and status throughout the processes relating to:
(a) The United Nations summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda, to be held from 25 to 27 September 2015;
(b) The high-level event on climate change, to be held in New York on
29 June 2015, and the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and eleventh session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, to be held in Paris from 30 November to 11 December 2015;
(c) The third International Conference on Financing for Development, to be held in Addis Ababa from 13 to 16 July 2015.
The Permanent Forum encourages Member States, in cooperation with United Nations agencies, to develop social policies that will enhance the production of indigenous peoples’ traditional foods and promote the restoration or recovery of lost drought-resistant indigenous food varieties to ensure food security. In this context, the Forum recommends that Burkina Faso, Mali and the Niger, as well as United Nations agencies such as FAO, IFAD and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, establish a committee, in full consultation with and with the participation of indigenous peoples, aimed at preventing food crises in the sub Saharan region where indigenous peoples reside. The committee’s objective should be to prevent humanitarian disasters and, in particular, to prevent starvation at the same level as the disaster that struck the region in 1973.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the World Intellectual Property Organization facilitating a process, in accordance with the Declaration, to engage with indigenous peoples on matters including intellectual property, genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore.
The Permanent Forum supports the efforts of UNESCO to mobilize resources for the creation of a financial mechanism for the International Decade. The Permanent Forum encourages Member States and the private sector to contribute to this mechanism. Indigenous peoples’ representatives should advise on the granting of funds to initiatives
The Permanent Forum recommends that UNESCO and other United Nations entities facilitate the work of language activists, including through methodological, educational, scientific, psychosocial and financial support, within the framework of the International Decade. The Permanent Forum invites UNESCO and its Forum of National Commissions, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research to develop, in cooperation with experts and representatives of indigenous peoples, an incubator of international methodologies in multilingual education, including studies of language revitalization best practices, teacher training and cross-cultural learning tools by 2025
The Permanent Forum reiterates its recommendation to adopt a programme of work on article 8 (j) and other provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity and strengthened institutional arrangements through a permanent subsidiary body to take forward the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and to ensure a human rights-based approach, and full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples, by the sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention. The Permanent Forum recommends ensuring direct access to financial resources for Indigenous Peoples, inclusive of all landscapes and seascapes, more efficient financial mechanisms managed by Indigenous Peoples and the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples’ representatives in the governance of the Framework to better design and implement grants. In that respect, the modus operandi and methods of work for enhanced Indigenous participation under article 8 (j) and related provisions The Permanent Forum reiterates its recommendation to adopt a programme of work on article 8 (j) and other provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity and strengthened institutional arrangements through a permanent subsidiary body to take forward the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and to ensure a human rights-based approach, and full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples, by the sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention. The Permanent Forum recommends ensuring direct access to financial resources for Indigenous Peoples, inclusive of all landscapes and seascapes, more efficient financial mechanisms managed by Indigenous Peoples and the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples’ representatives in the governance of the Framework to better design and implement grants. In that respect, the modus operandi and methods of work for enhanced Indigenous participation under article 8 (j) and related provisions must be the minimum standard and be prioritized as an essential prerequisite for the full implementation of target 31 of the Framework.