E/2006/43 E/C.19/2006/11 United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples and other United Nations agreements. 20. The Permanent Forum urges African Governments to ensure the full participation of indigenous peoples in the development of policies regarding the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals in all the activities of Governments, the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (A/57/304, annex). 21. The Permanent Forum requests the Economic and Social Council to organize an all-Africa conference to evaluate the status of the health sector in Africa by taking into account the realities of indigenous peoples in remote areas. It requests, furthermore, that the disaggregated data in the sectors be updated accordingly in order to achieve Millennium Development Goals 4 to 6. 22. The Permanent Forum welcomes and fully supports the holding of an international expert seminar on indicators relevant to indigenous peoples and biodiversity, to be organized by the working group on indicators of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, in cooperation with the Permanent Forum. 23. The Permanent Forum recommends that relevant United Nations special agencies’ regional directors for all regions appoint focal points on indigenous issues in order to form an inter-agency group at the regional level and that the regional focal points draft their own mandate and identify at least one common regional project or activity. 24. The Permanent Forum recommends that staff in country offices as well as those who work on specific countries from their own headquarters ensure the full participation of indigenous peoples in conducting evaluations under the United Nations Development Assistance Framework, as recommended in the 2004 framework. 25. The Permanent Forum recommends that the Executive Office of the SecretaryGeneral urgently set up a meeting between the Permanent Forum and the High-level Panel on United Nations System-wide Coherence in the Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance, and the Environment to secure the integration of indigenous peoples’ perspectives into the ongoing process of furthering system-wide coherence. 26. Indigenous peoples organizations are encouraged to assist in the monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals in their countries and submit information to the Permanent Forum concerning progress in that regard. 27. The United Nations system is encouraged to support the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples in efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals at the national and local levels. 28. There generally appears to be positive recognition of the approach to Goal 1 suggested by the Permanent Forum, while there has been less attention paid to Goal 2. In both areas, there appears to be an increase in the number of projects being implemented in Latin America, with limited projects in Asia, and one or two projects in Africa. This is particularly the case under Goal 2, where there is a general lack of reporting from Asia or Africa on intercultural/bilingual education projects or programmes in this area. 6

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