E/2026/43 E/C.19/2026/6 Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Indigenous Peoples and the media. 71. The Permanent Forum welcomes language revitalization efforts, including under the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, while expressing concern that Indigenous language loss remains severe due to policies that marginalize these languages in education, health and public life, resulting in persistent language‑based discrimination. 72. The Permanent Forum reaffirms that cultural rights are central to the identity, resilience and self‑determination of Indigenous Peoples, and emphasizes the need to safeguard Indigenous cultural heritage, including through the repatriation of human remains and ceremonial objects and the protection of sacred sites and Indigenous knowledge systems. 73. The Permanent Forum recognizes the essential role of Indigenous women, midwives, elders and traditional practitioners in maintaining and transmitting Indigenous knowledge, and the vital contribution of Indigenous youth to cultural continuity and the exercise of rights. 74. The Permanent Forum expresses concern over persistent barriers in accessing education, particularly for Indigenous persons with disabilities and those affected by conflict, displacement and environmental degradation, and urges sustained investment in Indigenous‑led community programmes that strengthen intergenerational connections to culture, language and Indigenous knowledge. It stresses that education must empower Indigenous Peoples as rights holders and agents of change, in line with the Declaration. 75. The Permanent Forum calls for the establishment of independent monitoring and accountability mechanisms to ensure the full and effective implementation of the Declaration, while underscoring that the credibility and effectiveness of such mechanisms, as well as of truth and reconciliation processes, depend on adequate, sustained resourcing and the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples at all stages. Recommendations for the United Nations system 76. The Permanent Forum urges Member States and the United Nations system to ensure the territorial integrity, right to internal and cross-border mobility, and meaningful participation in climate and biodiversity governance of cross -border Indigenous Peoples, and to develop, by 2030, protective legal frameworks for nomadic and semi-nomadic Indigenous Peoples. 77. The Permanent Forum urges the United Nations Development Programme, by the end of 2027, to establish and apply a standardized monitoring framework for all country-level projects affecting Indigenous Peoples, including measurable indicators on free, prior and informed consent, participation and socioeconomic impacts, to ensure positive development outcomes and prevent further hardship. 78. Recalling paragraph 146 of the report of its twenty-third session, the Permanent Forum calls upon UNESCO to develop, in conjunction with Indigenous Peoples, a fair, transparent, effective and participatory international mechanism for repatriating Indigenous Peoples’ human remains, cultural patrimony and sacred objects. 79. The Permanent Forum encourages Member States and other stakeholders to strengthen support for Indigenous-led media, recommends that UNESCO and Member States develop, by 2030, targeted action plans to strengthen Indigenous media capacity and ensure adequate, unbiased representation of Indigenous Peoples 14/24 26-06676