Good governance leads to good relationships: final report

In 2018, we commenced a Participatory Action Research project to explore the effectiveness of our community development approach in the Australian context.

The research explores the application of our partnership model: a collaborative, co-design framework in eleven remote, regional and urban Aboriginal communities. We aimed to improve knowledge on engaging with and strengthening First Nations' Governance, communities, organisations, and businesses through this exploration.

We chose to explore concepts of governance and governance practices in First Nations settings due to two main factors: identified gaps in First Nations' governance research and the growing demand we observed for governance-related community development projects. All eleven communities that agreed to participate in this research project had an existing relationship with us when the project commenced.

The Action Research Final Report provides a final summary and analysis of findings and lessons learnt from this research project. The research findings focus on two key areas: Bridging Governance1 and Community First Development ways of working.

Three key learnings:

• First Nations Governance is working. Structures, systems and entities interacting with communities should be designed to strengthen First Nations Governance and whole of community engagement.

• Western Governance needs to make more effort to do Right Way Governance.

• The Community First Development approach has the potential to inform partnership and genuine co-design in other programs and policies.

Community First Development is actively involved in First Nations' communities and established as a thought leader in First Nations' community and economic development, research, monitoring, and evaluation.

Read the full report here. Action Research Report 2021 — Community First Development