NADI, FIJI, 21 May — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today encouraged participants in the Pacific Regional Seminar to take into consideration recent developments in the region, such as the March 2014 visiting mission of the Special Committee on Decolonization to New Caledonia and other initiatives that made that body more visible and active.
The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today recommended 32 organizations for special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, and deferred action on 30 others. Action on many applications was postponed because Committee members wanted more information from the candidates about, among other things, details of their respective organizations’ projects, partners, expenditures and sources of funding.
Fighting racial discrimination and striving to be acknowledged by States were among the challenges facing indigenous communities worldwide, requiring more collaborative efforts to effect meaningful change, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues heard today during its day-long consideration of human rights.
Indigenous peoples must be able to participate fully, equally and effectively in all stages of the upcoming high-level General Assembly meeting to address their most important concerns, speakers said today as the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues debated — at times forcefully — the essential elements for contributing to the unprecedented event.
Against a backdrop pockmarked by cultural disintegration, “suicide clusters” and family displacements from extractive industries, speakers today in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples urged prompt and concerted action to reverse those trends and improve the lives of indigenous children and youth worldwide.
