The conference in 2010 addressed “Indigenous Participation in Policy-making: Ideals, Realities and Possibilities”, and revealed a significant implementation gap between the ideals and practice on the ground. The Forum conference in 2011 “Stakes Replacing Rights – New Pathways for Indigenous Peoples in Development Cooperation?” addressed how the approaches outlined in the Paris Declaration on Aid Efficiency and new large scale money-flows in development cooperation. Last year the Forum conference discussed how indigenous people could be made visible and important in the bigger picture.

This year, the focus at the Forum conference 2013 will be that a substantial part of development cooperation work is directly or indirectly affects indigenous peoples in the form of major government-supported programs. Important among these are REDD programs, bio-fuel programs, national parks, etc. While implementation of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been a theme at an earlier Forum conference, The Forum Conference 2013 will have the opposite approach and turn things around to focus on mechanisms, institutions and organizations available for indigenous peoples in their local and national settings to make use of international and legal achievements. The Forum Conference 2013 will be a physical meeting place for people working with development cooperation from the fields of research, management and development work; will present and reflect upon the foundations of the forum within Sápmi and the northern regions, and facilitate reflection concerning the current role and future work of the Forum. Geographically, the Forum Conference 2013 will take in examples from East Africa and northern Norway. The Forum Conference 2013 wishes to give knowledge, share experiences and raise questions. 

Language: English and Sami (No translation to Spanish or Norwegian)

Programme

Venue: University Campus, Teorifagbygget, Hus 1, Auditorium 1.