15 October 2014: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed a senior official to coordinate a UN system-wide action plan for raising awareness of the rights of indigenous peoples and increasing the coherence of UN activities with regard to indigenous issues, following on a decision made at the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP) in September 2014 (A/69/L.1). Wu Hongbo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, will coordinate the UN system’s follow-up action for the Conference.

Wu heads the UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs (DESA), which is the institutional home of the Secretariat of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). Wu was also recently appointed as the Secretary-General of the third international conference on Financing for Development (FfD).

The UN’s Geneva-based Human Rights Council (HRC) established an Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) in 2007 as a subsidiary body, to provide advice in the form of studies and research. A UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples reports annually to the HRC on the overall situation in specific countries, and addresses alleged violations, including through communications with governments. The current Special Rapporteur is Victoria Tauli Corpuz.

WCIP took place as a special session of the UN General Assembly, on 22-23 September 2014. [UN Press Release] [OHCHR Webpage on Expert Mechanism] [OHCHR Webpage on Special Rapporteur] [IISD RS Coverage of WCIP] [WCIP Outcome Document] [UNPFII Website]