• • • • • • • The need to seek peaceful ways of resolution of conflicts, respecting the rights of minorities; The importance of inclusion of the articles of the Declaration in national legislation and for legislative framework to be implemented in practice and access to justice ensured; The need to initiate public discussions on minorities and conduct awareness-raising activities on minority issues; The importance of ensuring effective political participation for minorities; The impact of the current economic crisis on the protection of minorities; That minorities continue to be amongst the groups most affected by xenophobic trends, including the discussions involving incitement to hatred by extremist movements; The need for existing framework to be the subject of continuous monitoring, assessment and change where necessary, and in close cooperation with the groups affected. Item VI— Consideration of future opportunities, initiatives and further possibilities for raising awareness of the Declaration, and ensuring its practical implementation Under this agenda item, the discussion focused on improving the draft recommendations. The objective was to formulate practical policies, actions or programmes to ensure better, more systematic implementation of the Declaration and the principles therein, in addition to ensuring its widespread dissemination. International Chief Littlechild, Chair of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, presented on “Good practices in the work of the Expert Mechanism” and first underlined that, despite the differences in the applicable legal framework, the political circumstances of many indigenous peoples, and especially States’ failures to recognise them as such, had led some indigenous peoples to continue to use the Declaration and other minority rights instruments to seek the protection of their rights. He pointed to the similarities in terms of rights and claims of persons belonging to minorities and indigenous peoples, including in relation to education, participation in decision-making, cultures and languages as well as access to justice. He expressed the hope that the Expert Mechanism’s studies and guidance would provide support to the work of the Forum on implementation of the Declaration before he gave practical examples from the work of the Expert Mechanism that could be replicated by the Forum in its efforts in finalising the draft recommendations and aimed at ensuring their implementation in practice. Ms. Dwi Rubiyanti Kholifah, Director of Asian Muslim Action Network Indonesia, presented on “Confronting Fundamentalism, Raising Awareness on Minority Rights in Indonesia” based on her experience working with an NGO promoting inter-faith dialogue and the role of women in peace-building. She pointed to the following four areas requiring changes for awareness-raising activities to have a positive impact in practice: first, the need for individual change among more people i.e. more women, men and young people from different background to understand human rights instruments at all levels; second, the need to intervene to achieve individual change among key people such as decision-makers, religious leaders, school teachers; third, the need for individual change to be transferred into cultural change, where strong civil society, including 16