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  • 01 Understanding governance
    • 1.0 Understanding governance
    • 1.1 The important parts of governance
    • 1.2 Indigenous governance
    • 1.3 Governance in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations
    • 1.4 Case studies
  • 02 Culture and governance
    • 2.0 Culture and governance
    • 2.1 Indigenous governance and culture
    • 2.2 Two-way governance
    • 2.3 Case studies
  • 03 Getting started
    • 3.0 Getting started on building your governance
    • 3.1 Assessing your governance
    • 3.2 Mapping your community for governance
    • 3.3 Case studies
  • 04 Leadership
    • 4.0 Leadership for governance
    • 4.1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership
    • 4.2 The challenges of leadership
    • 4.3 Evaluating your leadership
    • 4.4 Youth leadership and succession planning
    • 4.5 Building leadership capacity to govern
    • 4.6 Case studies
  • 05 Governing the organisation
    • 5.0 Governing the organisation
    • 5.1 Roles, responsibilities and rights of a governing body
    • 5.2 Accountability: what is it, to whom and how?
    • 5.3 Decision making by the governing body
    • 5.4 Governing finances and resources
    • 5.5 Communicating
    • 5.6 Future planning
    • 5.7 Building capacity and confidence for governing bodies
    • 5.8 Case studies
  • 06 Rules and policies
    • 6.0 Governance rules and policies
    • 6.1 What are governance rules?
    • 6.2 Governance rules and culture
    • 6.3 Running effective meetings
    • 6.4 Policies for organisations
    • 6.5 Case studies
  • 07 Management and staff
    • 7.0 Management and staff
    • 7.1 Managing the organisation
    • 7.2 The governing body and management
    • 7.3 Managing staff
    • 7.4 Staff development and training
    • 7.5 Case studies
  • 08 Disputes and complaints
    • 8.0 Dealing with disputes and complaints
    • 8.1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous approaches
    • 8.2 Core principles and skills for dispute and complaint resolution
    • 8.3 Disputes and complaints about governance
    • 8.4 Your members: dealing with disputes and complaints
    • 8.5 Organisations: dealing with internal disputes and complaints
    • 8.6 Practical guidelines and approaches
    • 8.7 Case studies
  • 09 Nation building and development
    • 9.0 Governance for nation rebuilding and development
    • 9.1 What is nation rebuilding?
    • 9.2 Governance for nation rebuilding
    • 9.3 Governance for sustained development
    • 9.4 Networked governance
    • 9.5 Kick-starting the process of nation rebuilding
    • 9.6 Case studies
  • Glossary
  • Useful links
  • Acknowledgements

Tag Archives: 09 Nation building and development

The MWG working together for the whole community

November 16, 2016
The Muntjiltjarra Wurrgumu Group (MWG) was awarded Highly Commended Category B in the 2014 Indigenous Governance Awards. Here MWG members Regina Ashwin and Stacey Petterson discuss how the family groups put their differences aside to work together for the whole community.
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Tagged 09 Nation building and development

How common goals united Girringun

November 16, 2016
Girringun Aboriginal Corporation was awarded Highly Commended Category A in the 2014 Indigenous Governance Awards. Here CEO Phil Rist outlines how Girringun’s leadership fostered a common goal to bring nine tribal groups together. By working together as ‘one voice’, and building relationships with surrounding stakeholders, a form of contemporary sovereignty has been established.
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Tagged 09 Nation building and development

Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly

March 22, 2013

Self-determination and community control The Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly (MPRA) is comprised of the Chairs or representatives of 16 Aboriginal Community Working Parties (CWP’s) across the Murdi Paaki Region of NSW. MPRA see self-determination as the key success to their …

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Posted in Case Studies Tagged 09 Nation building and development, 9.0 Governance for nation rebuilding and development

Bendigo Indigenous Homework Centre (BIHC)

March 15, 2013

Partnership and inclusiveness Bendigo Indigenous Homework Centre (BIHC) was set up in 2008 as a joint initiative by the Bendigo Local Indigenous Network, the Goldfield Local Learning and Employment network and the Department of Education Childhood Development. BIHC was set up …

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Posted in Case Studies Tagged 09 Nation building and development, 9.0 Governance for nation rebuilding and development

ALPA empowerment of Yolngu communities

February 28, 2013
In this video the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation (ALPA) considers its history, where it is today and its vision for the future.
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Tagged 09 Nation building and development, 9.0 Governance for nation rebuilding and development

Building the Murdi Paaki governance structure

February 28, 2013
Sam Jeffries, Chair of the Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly talks about the emerging structure and governance model of the Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly.
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Tagged 09 Nation building and development

Ten steps for the foundations of strong governance

February 28, 2013
  1. Seriously consider an incremental approach. Start off with one or two achievable priorities, achieve success there and then build on that. With continued success, community leaders could consider tackling a broader range of issues in a comprehensive approach.
  2. Make sure your community is behind you. There are countless stories of leaders getting so far out in front of their members that when the time comes for community ratification, it fails because the members are hearing about the details for the first time. Your members give you the mandate to build governance.
  3. Make sure your leadership is credible. Leaders must include their members in community planning and implementation. Credible leaders work hard to involve and unite the entire community or nation, and engage wider networks to support solutions.
  4. Build capable and legitimate institutions. These are your laws, constitutions, regulations, rules, policies, and checks and balances. Use them to develop a strategic approach to rebuild your nation’s governance and identify priorities and the approach to be taken.
  5. Identify strategic priorities and concerns. You cannot do everything at once. The current generation may have particular needs that will change in the future. Some foundations need to be built now, and others can be built upon later.
  6. Look hard at genuine cultural solutions. Culture is a source of innovation. Look at your enduring cultural values and the realistic role they can play in revitalising your governance and nation. Leaders that embrace cultural integrity work hard to harness the strength and resilience of cultural roots in ways that are credible and workable in today’s world.
  7. Ensure the governance capacity and confidence of your people is being actively developed and continuously promoted. Do this in parallel with implementing your other strategic goals and agreements. Don’t leave this until a crisis hits. It is no use having authority unless you can practically implement and exercise it.
  8. Ask the hard questions along the way. This will help ensure that your governance solutions continue to work as you want them to. In other words, make sure you monitor and periodically review your checks and balances.
  9. Make sure you have a succession plan in place and that young leaders can contribute their new ideas now, not later. Leaders build for the future by mentoring youth who will carry on their good work long into the future.
  10. Create genuine strategic alliances with other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations and with non-Indigenous supporters. Experiment with networked and collaborative governance arrangements that will support your agenda.

These 10 steps are drawn substantially from the governance research and writings of Dr Neil Sterritt; the Australian Indigenous Community Governance Research Project at The Australian National University; and the research of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Udall Centre, University of Arizona.

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Tagged 09 Nation building and development, 9.0 Governance for nation rebuilding and development

How to manage problems with your networks

February 28, 2013

To make sure your networks give you the best support for your governance, here are some potential problems to watch out for, and some tips for how to address them.

Network governance problem

Tips

Making decisions.
Some networks aim to reach consensus decisions—that is, all parties agreeing. But sometimes a single party may disagree, stopping a decision being made or later undermining it.
  • Clearly identify how decisions are made when consensus cannot be reached.
  • Encourage wide support for and the legitimacy of the decision-making process.
  • Have rules for ‘majority consensus’ and confidentiality to improve implementation.
Becoming complacent.
Networks can run the risk of becoming complacent, operating only in their comfort zone. They may also become bureaucratic and inflexible.
  • Make sure it is someone’s role in the network to seek new opportunities.
  • Arrange informal social and cultural activities.
  • Meet with other groups, communities and organisations to exchange contacts and ideas.
Accountability can become dispersed.
Accountability may become more difficult to monitor in large networks because decisions are made at many different points. Large networks are also more likely to lose touch with outlying members.
  • Make sure that the roles and responsibilities of the different parts of your network are clearly defined and understood.
  • Make sure that the accountability of network participants and processes is clear and agreed to by everyone.
Acquiring new skills.
Setting up new partnerships may require entirely new skills and knowledge, or may come up against resistance from the existing network.
  • Do an internal audit to work out if you have the people with the right skills for the partnership activities.
  • You may need to recruit or connect to people with new skills, contacts and relationships.
  • Share knowledge and plans between existing members by regular open communication.
  • Make partnerships with parties who have a good reputation for strong governance and creative solutions.
Becoming competitive.
Networks between groups or organisations with similar functions, memberships and funding sources may become competitive rather than collaborative.
  • Build trust across your networks—for example, by sharing resources, or by making joint decisions on issues that concern you all.
  • Encourage more open, accurate and easy exchange of information across the network.
Losing control.
Leaders and managers risk losing control of their own agenda if key stakeholders in your network—government, non-government organisations or industry groups—have different ideas and priorities.
  • Analyse the different concerns and issues of each stakeholder and how they are influencing your governance processes and outcomes.
  • Decide what parts of your agenda or goals are non-negotiable, and which you want to collaborate with others on.
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Tagged 09 Nation building and development, 9.0 Governance for nation rebuilding and development

How networks and networking can improve governance

February 28, 2013

Networks and networking can improve your governance in many ways:

Networks can foster constructive solutions

  • They help you develop ideas—on the basis that two heads are better than one.
  • They share knowledge and best practice.

Networks are flexible and responsive

  • They adapt how they work to suit the issue at hand or to accommodate future potential.

Networks create close relationships and ties, shared priorities and goals

  • They encourage better accountability to members of the network.

Networks can be a source of information and support

  • They facilitate sharing and discussion of issues of common interest, such as new laws and regulations, technological developments and best practices.

Decisions reached by networks can be more legitimate and easier to implement

  • They will represent a consensus of views of a broad group of people.
  • They might take longer but are likely to be more sustainable and widely supported.

Networks can link the national and regional to the local level

  • They bring different players together—communities, regional and national agencies, governments and organisations.
  • They are important for small remote groups and organisations.

Networks encourage the exchange of knowledge and build new skills

  • They can make new skills and resources more accessible—via outside experts, shared knowledge, staff exchanges and secondments, and mentoring.

Networks can benefit from economies of scale

  • They can share costs and scarce resources, assets and capacities.
  • They facilitate wider agreements and partnership.

Networks improve your reputation

  • Locally, in other cities or even overseas.
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Tagged 09 Nation building and development, 9.0 Governance for nation rebuilding and development

Snapshot: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander networked governance at work

February 28, 2013
You can see networked Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander governance at work in the structure and operation of:
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander extended families and their linked households
  • Clan, native title and land-ownership groups
  • Skin and kinship groups
  • Ceremonial relationships and responsibilities
  • Trade, language and sacred-knowledge networks
  • Peer groups and hierarchies of leaders (both male and female)
  • The residents of interrelated outstations, urban neighbourhoods, rural fringe camps and pastoral stations
  • ‘whole of community’ governing collaborations
  • Federations of dispersed communities
  • Regional assemblies
  • ‘families’ of incorporated organisations
  • Organisational alliances, peak bodies and representative associations.
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Tagged 09 Nation building and development, 9.0 Governance for nation rebuilding and development
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Case Studies

NPY Women’s Council – strong culture, strong women, strong communities

  NPY Women’s Council (NPYWC) was set up in 1980 and incorporated in 1994.  The organisation was founded in response to the concerns of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women throughout the APY lands.   The women were concerned about the …

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Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly

Self-determination and community control The Murdi Paaki Regional Assembly (MPRA) is comprised of the Chairs or representatives of 16 Aboriginal Community Working Parties (CWP’s) across the Murdi Paaki Region of NSW. MPRA see self-determination as the key success to their …

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NPY Women’s Council: Building your cultural guiding principles into your rulebook

The NPY Women’s Council became incorporated under new legislation in 2008. The council undertook a significant period of consultation with its members—spread across a large geographic region—in the lead-up to lodging its new rulebook (formally known as the constitution) with …

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Social Justice Commissioner launches 2014 Social Justice and Native Title Report

Mr Mick Gooda is the current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. The Commissioner has a unique role at the Australian Human Rights Commission, responsible for advocating for the recognition of the rights of Indigenous Australians. As part …

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Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2014 Report

The Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report: Key Indicators 2014 (OID Report) was released by the Productivity Commission in November 2014. The OID Report measures the wellbeing of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. The report provides information about outcomes across a range of strategic …

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The Australian Indigenous Governance Institute

The Australian Indigenous Governance Institute is a unique Indigenous led national centre of governance knowledge and excellence. We know that practically effective and culturally legitimate governance is the staple building block for delivering real change.

We assist Indigenous Australians in their diverse efforts to determine and strengthen their own sustainable systems of self-governance by identifying world-class governance practice, informing effective policy, providing accessible research, disseminating stories that celebrate outstanding success and solutions, and delivering professional education and training opportunities.

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