The Permanent Forum recommends that UNICEF allocate at least one fellowship to an indigenous young person from each region every year for a term of at least three months, to empower indigenous youth and promote knowledge and experience regarding the United Nations system and the work of the Fund, and including financial support.
Bearing in mind the principle of free, prior and informed consent as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Permanent Forum recommends that relevant UNICEF materials be translated into the languages of and made accessible to the indigenous peoples with whom the Fund is working so that they can participate fully in the planning and implementation of projects that directly or indirectly affect them.
The Permanent Forum urges the Governments of Colombia and Ecuador to take immediate action to protect the indigenous peoples whose territories are in the border area between the two countries. The Forum encourages the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples to work with the two Governments to address this situation in close cooperation with the indigenous communities concerned.
The Permanent Forum, noting the significance for indigenous peoples of the negotiations under way at WIPO on intellectual property and genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, strongly encourages representatives of indigenous peoples to participate in those negotiations, consistent with article 18 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Permanent Forum, bearing in mind the contributions of indigenous peoples’ traditional medicines to the recovery from the pandemic, invites the World Health Assembly to declare an international year of indigenous peoples’ traditional medicines by 2025.
The Permanent Forum urges States to respect and support indigenous peoples’ priorities, including through the development and implementation of economic recovery strategic plans to support and strengthen indigenous peoples’ institutions, authorities and decision-making bodies in the exercise of their right to selfdetermination. Indigenous peoples have the right to possess the means for financing their autonomous functions and priorities.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the work of the Indigenous Coordinating Body for Enhanced Participation in the United Nations in furthering the objectives of resolution 71/321 and agrees on the need to establish a new and distinct status for Indigenous Peoples’ participation at the General Assembly. It also welcomes the organization in November 2022 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) of the expert workshop on enhanced participation in the Human Rights Council. The Permanent Forum looks forward to reading the report and the recommendations from the workshop when they are submitted to the Human Rights Council prior to its fifty-third session. The Permanent Forum calls upon the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly to ensure further progress on this vital matter. The Permanent Forum encourages Member States to financially support the work of the Indigenous Coordinating Body.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Pan American Health Organization and all regional United Nations health entities ensure that their mandates address the rights of Indigenous Peoples, separate from minority, diversity and intercultural approaches, in compliance with the Declaration and the WHO resolution on Indigenous health.
The Permanent Forum appreciates the organization of a seminar on advances and challenges in the implementation of the Declaration, which was held in Mexico City and attended by Indigenous experts from Latin America, and which resulted in a series of recommendations included in the document “Mexico-Tenochtitlán Agreements on the Implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”. The Forum calls upon the organizers of that seminar to report on progress made with regard to those recommendations in the outcome document of the seminar.