A/73/176 her last report to the General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur has sent 37 communications to 20 States, as well as to other actors, in relation to allege d violations of a wide range of economic, social and cultural, as well as civil and political rights. 3 29. Some of those communications have led to fruitful dialogues and immediate action on the rights of indigenous peoples. In January 2018, the European Commission decided to suspend a climate change project in the Embobut forest in Kenya, pending an assessment of human rights compliance, as called for by the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, together with other Special Rapporteurs. Days before the decision, the Special Rapporteurs had sent urgent appeals to the Government of Kenya and the European Commission relating to forced evictions of and attacks on the indigenous Sengwer peoples in the Embobut forest, in the context of the European Union-funded project. 30. The Special Rapporteur has continued to cooperate with other human rights mechanisms, United Nations bodies and regional human rights organizations relevant to the rights of indigenous peoples. Such cooperation has included her attendance at and active contributions to the annual sessions of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In 2018, the Special Rapporteur also attended the high-level political forum on sustainable development, where she contributed to a thematic discussion on leaving no one behind. At the regional level, the Special Rapporteur has increased cooperation with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, as discussed above. III. Indigenous peoples and self-governance A. Background 31. Long before they were colonized by external forces and before post-colonial nation-States emerged, indigenous peoples all over the world had developed complex ways of governing themselves. A review of the histories of indigenous peoples shows that, prior to colonization, there were existing governance systems establishing rules on the ways indigenous peoples related to each other and their neighbours, as well as with nature and the surrounding ecosystems. The traditional worldviews, values, norms and laws of indigenous peoples, and their concepts of authority and ways of exercising leadership, were embedded in those governance systems. 32. Most colonizers, rulers of settler nation-States and those who built up the nation-States following struggles for independence undermined and denigrated the indigenous governance systems, which were regarded as inferior or backward compared with Western governance systems. They were also seen as threats to the consolidation of the rule and powers of the new regimes. In spite of efforts to eliminate indigenous governance systems, many indigenous peoples continued to assert their rights to define and determine their relationships with the colonial and post-colonial Governments. Today, several of those indigenous governance systems continue to exist and function. The diversity of such systems is a result of the different historical contexts and experiences that indigenous peoples have undergone and the strength and persistence of their struggles for self-determination. 33. In this section, the Special Rapporteur presents a general introduction to the theme of indigenous peoples and self-governance, building upon some of the earlier reports of the mandate holder, as well as on the work of the Expert Mechanism and the Permanent Forum (see, for example, A/HRC/18/42, A/HRC/15/35 and __________________ 3 8/23 See the communications reports available at https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/. 18-11856