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The Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues visited El Salvador in order to follow up the development of a National Plan on Indigenous Peoples as part of a policy dialogue project with the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs. The Secretariat also met with the UN Country Team in order to brief it on the outcome document of the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples and the recently adopted System Wide Action Plan for Ensuring a Coherent Approach to Achieving the Ends of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (SWAP on Indigenous Peoples).
The Secretariat attended meetings with Indigenous Peoples’ representatives and government officials in order to follow up on their activities towards the development of a National Plan. Indigenous Peoples’ representatives carried out consultation processes in order to have clarity about their main concerns and priorities, while government officials are mapping all policies and programmes on Indigenous Peoples in the country.
It is expected that the National Plan on Indigenous Peoples will be concluded the first trimester of 2016. The outcome document of the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples calls the UN system and resident coordinators to support the execution of plan of actions to achieve the goals of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The briefing on the outcome document and the SWAP on Indigenous Peoples with the UNCT in El Salvador was chaired by Mr. Christian Salazar, Resident Coordinator of the UN system. The UNCT is engaged in the process of the development on the National Plan and will follow up its implementation. The UNCT expressed interest to look into the activities of the SWAP.
Parties involved in the National Plan expressed their interest in organizing a side event during the 15th session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2016 in order to share their experience.
