BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTARY FUND

 

FOR INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS CONCLUDES 18th SESSION

 

(Reissued as received.)

GENEVA, 4 March (UN Information Service) -- The Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations concluded its eighteenth session on 3 March by recommending the approval of grants to assist representatives of indigenous organizations and communities to participate in the deliberations of various international indigenous rights panels.

The Board submitted for the approval of the United Nations Secretary-General a total of 60 travel grants, and it adopted other recommendations related to the administration of the Fund.  It also considered favourably a possible extension of the mandate of the Fund to include financial support to human rights projects of indigenous organizations.

The Board, which first met in 1988, was the first United Nations body to include indigenous experts in an advisory capacity to the Secretary-General.

At this session, its five members, Lars Anders Baer, a Saami; Nadir Bekirov, a Crimean Tatar; Ahmed Mahiou, an Amazigh; José Carlos Morales Morales, a Brunca, and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, an Igorot, considered some 500 applications for travel grants from representatives of indigenous organizations and communities to attend the 2005 sessions of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the Working Group on Indigenous Populations and the Working Group on the draft United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

During this session, which began on 28 February, the Board also held its annual meeting with interested donor governments and expressed appreciation for the contributions to the Fund.  The Board also informed them of the financial status of the Fund, the adopted recommendations and invited them to contribute generously for the next session.

More detailed information will be available in the report of the Secretary-General to the Working Group on Indigenous Populations.  For further information, please contact the secretariat of the Fund:  Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland, tel.:  (+41 22) 917 91 64/91 45, fax: (+41 22) 917 90 66, e-mail:  IndigenousFunds@ohchr.org.

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