A/HRC/21/23 IV. Conclusions 34. The rights of indigenous peoples have remained a priority for the OHCHR and, in pursuing this priority, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was the Office’s key reference and framework for action. The High Commissioner herself repeatedly invoked the standards of the Declaration in her dialogue with authorities and indigenous peoples and the role of the Declaration was central in other work touching on indigenous peoples, ranging from the fellowship programme and other capacity-building work, to providing technical advice and enhancing participation of indigenous peoples in decision-making at both international and national levels. 35. The Office also provided support to wide-ranging work of the mandates devoted to indigenous peoples, notably the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Furthermore, the Office supported efforts to enhance the visibility of indigenous peoples’ rights in the Human Rights Council’s universal periodic review and in human rights treaty bodies. This was further facilitated by the recent expansion of the mandate of the Voluntary Fund on Indigenous Populations, which is now mandated to support indigenous participation both in human rights treaty bodies and the Human Rights Council. 36. Much of the work of the Office pertaining to indigenous peoples took place at the regional and country level. OHCHR provided new guidance on subregional challenges such as securing human rights of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation, and field presences took a range of other initiatives to advance the implementation of the Declaration and other key human rights instruments. 37. Throughout the year, OHCHR joined forces with other United Nations entities in order to ensure coherence and maximum combined impact of its work on indigenous peoples. A concrete example of this was the progress achieved under the United Nations Indigenous Peoples Partnership Initiative, with first country and regional programmes selected for implementation. 10