A/HRC/44/35 25. Following broad consultations, held during its seventieth and seventy-first sessions, the General Assembly adopted its resolution 71/321 on 8 September 2017. In that resolution, the Assembly recognized the need to find further ways and means of promoting the participation of indigenous peoples’ representatives and institutions within the United Nations system on issues affecting them. It also requested the Secretary-General to report to it on that issue by the end of its seventy-fourth session. In the same resolution, the Assembly also requested the President of the Assembly to organize informal interactive hearings during its seventy-second, seventy-third and seventy-fourth sessions, ensuring, to the extent possible, balanced regional representation. The first two hearings were organized on the margins of the seventeenth and eighteenth sessions of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 26. Ms. Hakala pointed out that the voices of indigenous peoples, including women and young people, were not being sufficiently heard in decision-making processes. In fact, indigenous peoples themselves were not in a position to take part in the annual dialogue of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples with the Human Rights Council. 27. She stressed the support of Finland for the participation of indigenous peoples’ representative institutions that had been self-determined in all General Assembly, Economic and Social Council and Human Rights Council meetings on issues affecting them, with participation modalities including, at a minimum, opportunities to speak and to provide written information. 28. In regard to the Human Rights Council, Ms. Hakala underlined that there was an opportunity to take concrete steps forward on the issue of participation. Indigenous peoples’ representatives and institutions should have opportunities to speak at relevant meetings, to provide written information relevant to the Council’s agenda and to make nominations for special procedures appointments. 29. Ms. Yamada recalled that the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples had previously proposed that the Human Rights Council make further efforts to enhance the participation of indigenous peoples’ representatives and institutions in its work. The Expert Mechanism would continue to make proposals to the Council on that issue in a constructive spirit, and it regretted that indigenous peoples and their representative institutions could only speak through NGOs maintaining consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, even when the very issue of indigenous peoples’ participation was being discussed. 30. She underlined that in addition to its general provisions on participation in decisionmaking, in articles 5 and 18, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples also explicitly addresses the role of the United Nations in the full realization of its provisions in article 41. The Declaration went as far as stating that ways and means of ensuring participation of indigenous peoples on issues affecting them shall be established. 31. Ms. Yamada acknowledged and commended Guatemala and Mexico – the cosponsors of resolutions pertaining to indigenous peoples at the Human Rights Council – whose inclusive and respectful approach to indigenous peoples’ participation in informal negotiations of resolution texts was greatly appreciated by indigenous representatives attending Council sessions. 32. She also recognized the indigenous representatives and organizations who through the years had ensured that indigenous voices were heard at the Council, despite the barriers to more enhanced participation. She expressed the Expert Mechanism’s appreciation for the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples and for all the Member States that had contributed to it since its establishment. 33. When indigenous peoples’ participation was facilitated and ensured in United Nations processes, positive outcomes were achieved. The Expert Mechanism had witnessed this first hand as one of the two United Nations bodies that allowed indigenous peoples to participate fully in their own right and capacity. 34. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was an example of the power of participation, in that, for the first time, rights-holders had been allowed to participate fully in the drafting and negotiations of an instrument of international 5