At the 12th plenary meeting of ECOSOC, held on 7 May, the Council elected the government-nominated Members to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues for a 3-year term beginning 1 January 2020. The elected Members are the following:

• Vital Bambanze (Burundi)
• Bornface Museke Mate (Namibia)
• Zhang Xiaoan* (China)
• Grigory E. Lukiyantsev (Russian Federation)
• Lourdes Tibán Guala* (Ecuador)
• Irma Pineda Santiago (Mexico)
• Tove Søvndahl Gant (Denmark)

One vacancy in Eastern European States was postponed.

(* Re-elected)

Read the full UN coverage of the ECOSOC Elections here.

According to ECOSOC resolution 2000/22 “the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues consists of sixteen members, eight members to be nominated by Governments and elected by the Council, and eight members to be appointed by the President of the Council following formal consultation with the Bureau and the regional groups through their coordinators, on the basis of broad consultations with indigenous organizations, taking into account the diversity and geographical distribution of the indigenous people of the world as well as the principles of transparency, representativity and equal opportunity for all indigenous people, including internal processes, when appropriate, and local indigenous consultation processes, with all members serving in their personal capacity as independent experts on indigenous issues for a period of three years with the possibility of re-election or reappointment for one further period; States, United Nations bodies and organs, intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Council may participate as observers; organizations of indigenous people may equally participate as observers in accordance with the procedures which have been applied in the Working Group on Indigenous Populations of the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.”