Concluding Annual Session, Permanent Forum Approves Draft Decisions Highlighting Importance of Culturally Suitable, Empowering Indigenous-Led Education
Concluding its twenty-fourth session, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues sent three draft decisions to the Economic and Social Council for formal adoption, as its Chair highlighted the importance of Indigenous-led education that is liberating and not colonizing.
A high-level advisory body to the Economic and Social Council, the Forum was established in 2000 and is mandated to deal with Indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, environment, education, health and human rights. This year’s session took place at Headquarters, from 21 April to 2 May, and focused on “Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples within United Nations Member States and the United Nations system, including identifying good practices and addressing challenges”.
By the first of three decisions it approved today — draft decision I — the Forum would have the Economic and Social Council authorize a three-day international expert group meeting on the theme “Recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ rights in the context of the climate crisis, biodiversity governance and territorial integrity: focusing on nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples, including pastoralists and shifting cultivators”.
By draft decisions II and III, the Council would set the dates for the Permanent Forum’s twenty-fifth session — at UN Headquarters from 20 April to 1 May 2026 — and the provisional agenda for that meeting. All three draft decisions are contained in document E/C.19/2025/L.3. All these texts were introduced by the Forum’s Rapporteur, Suleiman Mamutov (Ukraine). The Forum also approved the procedural chapters of its draft report for the current session (document E/C.19/2025/L.2).
The Forum also approved additional recommendations, on matters ranging from “Dialogue with the United Nations agencies, funds and programmes” to “Future work of the Permanent Forum”. Some of these were orally revised during the meeting, and will be contained in documents E/C.19/2025/L.4, E/C.19/2025/L.5, E/C.19/2025/L.6, E/C.19/2025/L.7, E/C.19/2025/L.8, E/C.19/2025/L.9, E/C.19/2025/L.10 and E/C.19/2025/L.11, as well as an informal working paper.
In closing remarks, Permanent Forum Chair Aluki Kotierk (Canada) thanked delegates for a powerful session — it was an opportunity to understand the systemic challenges Indigenous Peoples face and the solutions they are generating, “grounded in our worldviews, rights and strengths”. She highlighted the importance of culturally appropriate education, noting that many systems of education are assimilationist. Instead of empowering, they ignore or erase Indigenous cultures, languages and ways of life.
Reaffirming the importance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, she said it has influenced the drafting of constitutions and laws and contributed to policy reforms. But, implementation is uneven “and in many places symbolic” — she pointed out. Marginalization and exclusion persist, not as remnants of the past, but as results of deliberate policies designed to erase Indigenous Peoples’ identities.
Many speakers at the Forum stressed the need to distinguish between Indigenous Peoples and local communities, she said, also pointing to the insights from the first-ever dialogue on the rights of Indigenous women. She also highlighted the Forum’s compelling calls for the protection of Indigenous lands and territories, especially given the rising demand for critical minerals.
“I thank you, delegates and representatives”, for perseverance and unwavering commitment, she said. Noting that, in her Indigenous language, goodbye is translated as “until we see you again”, she added: “May your paths be guided by wisdom, resilience and the spirit of your peoples.”
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* Due to the ongoing liquidity crisis affecting the United Nations, the 7th through 14th Meetings were not covered.