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What Conditions Will Enable Indigenous-Led Development to Thrive in Australia? 15 November 2013

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What Conditions Will Enable Indigenous-Led Development to Thrive in Australia? 15 November 2013 What conditions will enable Indigenous-led development to thrive in Australia? 15 November 2013 WHAT CONDITIONS WILL ENABLE INDIGENOUS-LED DEVELOPMENT TO THRIVE IN AUSTRALIA? A consolidation of international and domestic evidence and views of stakeholders as a resource for the design of the Indigenous Development Effectiveness Initiative (IDEI). Compiled by the IDEI team A WORK IN PROGRESS 15 November 2013 An initiative supported by: What conditions will enable Indigenous-led development to thrive in Australia? 15 November 2013 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Summary of project “Without the genuine and active involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people every step of the way in our efforts to close the gap, we risk making only miniscule progress. A business as usual approach will not close the gap.” Mr Mick Gooda, Indigenous Involvement Vital to Close the Gap, 20121 “Surely it’s time to start looking at the evidence of what’s working for many Indigenous peoples and their communities, to understand why it’s working, and then begin developing policy frameworks to build success: creating broader opportunities for public and private investment, intercultural collaborations and problem-solving towards a more sustainable future”. Dr Seán Kerins, A key role for Indigenous peoples in Australia's sustainable future, 20132 The above quotes neatly sum up the purpose of the Indigenous Development Effectiveness Initiative (IDEI). The Australian Government and World Vision Australia have signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding 2012-2017 (MOU), a high level document to inform and examine development practice across the portfolio of Indigenous Affairs and in particular to “engage the expertise of the domestic and international development sectors to provide advice on development administration”.3 Work under the MOU includes the Indigenous Development Effectiveness Initiative (IDEI), which is looking at the conditions, systems, structures and capabilities that can better support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, organisations and communities to drive their own development. The Australian Government has provided funding for the design of the IDEI as the first initiative to be progressed under the MOU. Central to the IDEI is the principle of Indigenous community-driven development. The IDEI design will address how and when this Initiative’s decision-making power, responsibility, resources and authority is established to achieve Indigenous community-driven development. The IDEI is intended to be phased over a five-year period. An IDEI team, consisting of people with domestic and international development experience, commenced work in July 2013 and is collating this first stage evidence base report and beginning preparations for the IDEI design phase. The report consolidates international and domestic evidence on community-driven development approaches, taken from reports and personal communications with a number of experienced individuals, and will inform the participatory design of the IDEI to support a community-led development approach. The design will be driven by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and organisations, with a range of input and information being sought from a cross-section of organisations, industries and Indigenous communities. It is clear in the evidence base, and through our practical engagement with Indigenous representatives to date, that there is a confluence of drivers, conditions and ideas emerging that support the need for system change to operationalise the conditions for Indigenous community-led development to thrive. What conditions will enable Indigenous-led development to thrive in Australia? November 2013 At the forefront of the minds of many Indigenous people is the importance of ensuring that culture, law, language and land are at the centre of development. In addition, the need to develop an economic future is recognised as vitally important to Indigenous communities, and opportunities for a higher level of educational achievement and entry into the mainstream workforce is the aspiration of many Indigenous people. Common themes that emerged from the stakeholders (Indigenous, government and NGOs) are: Indigenous people want to control their futures. There are environmental conditions that will need to be addressed in order to support community-driven development. Communities, Indigenous organisations, NGOs and Government all need to address their capacity and capability needs. Engagement with Indigenous people (with some exceptions) is poor. Accountability and compliance arrangements will need to be addressed by communities and governments. Place-based approaches to Aboriginal community development need to be reinforced using an evidence base and effective monitoring and impact measurement. There is a need to learn from and build on existing initiatives. Government, NGOs and other agencies are presently working in silos to the detriment of Aboriginal development. All shared a concern about achieving value for money and wanted to see the involvement of central agencies such as the Department of Finance. The domestic section in the report highlights a number of issues relating to successful community- driven initiatives in Australia including: the importance of time and capacity to enduring community-driven solutions and approaches the impact of risk averse and rapidly changing policy settings on the ability of communities and organisations to be innovative low government capacity in community development has impeded efforts the need for governance and leadership programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to support community-driven approaches. The domestic section also identifies that the most enduring and sustained community-driven approaches are those initiated by Indigenous communities in partnership with government and other stakeholders. The case studies in the report illustrate these learnings.4 The international section looks at community-driven approaches across the world. Significant emerging economies with large and diverse indigenous populations, such as Indonesia and Brazil, have adopted it as their primary development approach. It is the principle approach required by major development banks such as the World Bank, which spends approximately $2.6 billion per year on community-driven development programs in its member nations. Since 2002 it has funded community-driven development programs, in partnership with national governments, in 106 countries. Independent evaluations of the programs appearing as case studies in the report demonstrate a clear difference in the effectiveness of community-driven development programs. This is particularly clear in the case of World Bank projects, where analysis of community-driven development projects is compared to neighbouring control communities, often showing a stark contrast in communities achieving national targets (such as reduction in malnutrition rates, or increasing school attendance rates). Community-driven development communities often return target results from 10-40% better. 3 Work in Progress as at 15 November 2013 What conditions will enable Indigenous-led development to thrive in Australia? November 2013 The diagram below shows the structural and operational conditions that international experiences suggest are required to support community-driven development ways of working. Whilst still to be tested during the collaborative design of the IDEI with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, it is clear (as shown below) that the conditions being considered resonate with the observations from the domestic and international evidence as well as the views of stakeholders. CONSOLIDATING THE EVIDENCE – INTERNATIONAL, DOMESTIC AND STAKEHOLDERS STRUCTURAL CONDITIONS EMERGING FROM THE INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE BASE Whole of Integrated Systems to support Community-Driven End-to-end alignment Portfolio Partnerships the approach Indigenous Communities OPERATIONAL CONDITIONS Indigenous Organisations EMERGING FROM THE INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE BASE NGOs Devolve Develop Build the capacity government centralised Provide a single Build the capacity of Governments of communities to decision-making Program point of contact for governments, service- vision, plan, Corporate Bodies to levels as close Support government at providers, NGOs and other manage and as practicable to Functions community level non-community actors collaborate communities (PSF) OBSERVATIONS FROM AN ANALYSIS OF DOMESTIC EVIDENCE Community-driven The past two years development aspirations of The risk averse nature of have seen some new government in the last political and administrative Genuine efforts to The centrality of government programs decade have been framed systems has impeded build community community-driven and strategies place a in terms of Indigenous devolution and innovation governance and development principles renewed emphasis on people participating in to support genuine efforts Indigenous leadership in government building community service delivery through to build community are challenging for initiatives has waned governance capacity ‘partnerships’ and ‘shared governance and Indigenous governments and empowering responsibility’ leadership Indigenous leadership arrangements The most enduring and Low government capacity to sustained community- Sustainable community- facilitate community driven initiatives have driven development development and A commitment to community governance and been those initiated by initiatives
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