UNPFII17: Asia Indigenous Peoples’ follow up to WCIP’s Outcome Document

Agenda 11: Follow-up to the Outcome Document of World Conference on Indigenous Peoples
Statement of Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) and Asia Indigenous Peoples Caucus
Presented by Gam Shimray of AIPP

We wish to draw the attention of the UNPFII members to the following recommendations regarding the sub-items under this agenda:

With regards to (a) Implementation of national action plans, strategies or other measures, we recommend the PFII members to call on the:

• Asian States to abide by their commitments to implement the UNDRIP and develop NAPs in accordance with the WCIP Outcome Document/
• Asian governments to initiate a good faith process of consultations with indigenous peoples’ legitimate representatives, to formulate or re-formulate NAPs, as needed/
• Reform national legal and administrative policies to conform with the provisions of the Outcome Document of WCIP, with the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned.

With regards to (b) Ways to enhance the participation of indigenous peoples at the United Nations, we reaffirm our position of indigenous peoples’ participation at the UN forwarded by the Asia Caucus during the 16^th Session of UNPFII on the same agenda item.  We recommend the PFII members to:

• Elaborate to Member-States the importance of the regional consultation, in line with our rights to self-determination, as stipulated in paragraph 6 of the “Resolution on Enhancing indigenous peoples participation.”
• Work with UN agencies and mechanisms to demand a regional consultation to be conducted by the Member-States.
• Call on Asian governments to respect indigenous peoples position re regional consultation, specifically:
  1. Indigenous peoples shall decide on who will participate and they will identify the requirements for participation.
  2. Participation of indigenous peoples shall go beyond the global level, and the global level agreements are to be trickled down to the community level

With regards to (c) Implementation of the United Nations system-wide action plan on indigenous peoples, we recommend to the PFII members to:

• Advise UN agencies to assist Member-States in implementing 2030 Agenda by having the UN Country Teams engage directly with indigenous peoples in implementing SWAP, including putting up a mechanism for indigenous communities to allow direct access to financial resources at country level.

Click here to download full statement.