Welcome to the United Nations
Addressee: UN entities
Full Text
The Permanent Forum is concerned about the lack of data on indigenous peoples across the United Nations system, especially with regard to target 17.18 of the Sustainable Development Goals concerning the development of inclusive policies that leave no one behind. The Permanent Forum recognizes the need for establishing standards on the collection, analysis and dissemination of statistical information related to indigenous peoples and will engage in efforts with relevant stakeholders to achieve these ends. As a first step, the Permanent Forum invites United Nations entities to make their statistics on indigenous peoples accessible.
Responses
OHCHR
Another form of engagement at country level of OHCHR via its Surge Initiative is the support given to UN Country Teams (UNCTs) regarding the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks (UNSDCFs) and Common Country Analyses (CCAs) which represent the UN Development System’s collective offer to support countries in addressing key SDG priorities and gaps and imperative to Leave No One Behind (LNOB), meaning due attention should be placed in these documents to the situation of indigenous peoples:
• The UNSDG Human Rights Focal Point Network conducted an inter-agency Review of CCAs/CFs, led by OHCHR in 2021-20226, which has identified – among other findings that population groups insufficiently represented in CCAs include indigenous peoples, who also run the risk of becoming even more invisible in the CFs. Therefore, one of its recommendations to Resident-Coordinators and UNCTs is “to improve focus on indigenous peoples as well as racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTIQ+ people, and other LNOB groups, in line with the 2030 Agenda’s LNOB pledge”. Other recommendations are to directly address all the most marginalized, most disadvantaged and excluded groups identified in human rights mechanisms’ recommendations; to capture existing systemic and other forms of discrimination and to tie them to programming recommendations; and, to not treat disadvantaged groups homogeneously but rather recognize the intersectional factors of discrimination as well as their root causes.
• To help address this gap and reinforce the operational integration of these Human Rights, LNOB, and Gender Equality principles in the design and review of CCAs and CFs, the Network -under OHCHR lead- is finalizing a practical tool, comprised of two checklists and an online interactive document. The Tool includes reference to a series of Reference documents on Indigenous People. The Tool also reminds RCOs and UNCTs to take into account indigenous peoples’ rights with regard to traditional knowledge, lands, resources, and territories in relation to addressing environmental and climate change issues in CCAs. In a similar vein, it provides tips and guidance to ensure that the CF focuses on reducing inequalities and countering discrimination, including on the basis of indigenous origin, and on including interventions that address the situation of indigenous peoples. In addition, the Tool showcases promising practices of CCAs that have included specific analysis concerning indigenous peoples and/or have engaged indigenous peoples through consultations for the development of the analysis, in addition to CFs that include indigenous peoples in monitoring the implementation of the CF. [The Tool will be officially launched on 10 December 2022].
• OHCHR also actively contributed to the development of the new Output Indicator Framework and Implementation Guide, set up by the UNSDG in November 2022, that will reinforce the transparency and accountability of the UNCTs in a UN delivering together on the Agenda 2030 and its SDGs, leaving no one behind. OHCHR has in particular advocated for a human rights approach to be integrated in the definition and implementation of the SDG output indicators. The methodological notes for the new framework includes a list of 20 Standard LNOB Groups, one of which is indigenous peoples. As such, the UNCTs are encouraged to more readily include this group if important or relevant in the country’s context.
OHCHR had also developed a number of tools that could provide inspiration for similar tools aiming to address indigenous peoples being left out of national policy-making. It is the case of the Tool for the Introduction of the “Leave No One Behind” principle into legislative and strategic acts of the Republic of Serbia, from Sept 2022. This practical tool provides clear guidelines to decision-makers in understanding and applying one of the major principles of the 2030 Agenda, thereby trying to ensure that the most marginalized and excluded groups will be better recognized and involved at all stages of legislative and strategic acts in Serbia, across sectors.
Final Report of UNPFII Session 21 (2022)
Area of Work
