Indigenous communities can be successful in establishing good governance according to a landmark study of what works and what doesn’t in 11 Indigenous communities across the nation.

The Indigenous Community Governance Project (ICGP) found that this success is achieved despite the complex inter-cultural environment in which these communities operate. In particular, the study shows that the way governments function affects Indigenous capacities to govern themselves well.

Many of the problems facing Indigenous communities result from a failure of governments to provide responsive, streamlined, and sustained support to Indigenous communities to build their governance capacities, the research found.

It analyses government arrangements for Indigenous affairs and has found departmental ‘territorialism’, inertia and poor coordination, a plethora of funding arrangements, and cost-shifting between different levels of government have all contributed to the apparently intractable social and economic disadvantages facing Indigenous people.

Yet it found Indigenous organisations and leaders were undertaking the hard work of reforming and building workable, legitimate, accountable and effective governance institutions, using their cultural values and social relationships as assets to help build stronger governance.

“The important principles of Indigenous governance and transferable lessons identified by this project could usefully inform the development of more enabling government policy and service delivery to Indigenous communities,” said Professor Mick Dodson, Director of Reconciliation Australia, and one of four ICGP Chief Investigators on the ARC-funded Linkage Project undertaken in partnership with Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at ANU.

The study goes a long way to showing what needs to be done to build successful community governance for the long-term, according to Ms Diane Smith, Fellow at CAEPR. “If change is to happen in Indigenous Australia then we must work effectively to build the governance of these communities drawing on the principles and lessons we’ve identified. Knee-jerk, short term shock tactics which suggest that Indigenous culture is the problem are not the answer.

“Our research highlights the fact that the development of governance institutions and capacity needs to be built into any arrangements right from the start; taking control away and then handing it back later and expecting Indigenous people to work with models and programs they’ve had no say in developing won’t work; there are principles of Indigenous governance to build on, and we’ve got to mesh the government support with what’s functioning,” Ms Smith said.

The ICGP, which was overseen by an international advisory committee, is the largest comparative study of governance in Indigenous communities to be undertaken in Australia. Its Chief Investigators are the Director of CAEPR, Professor Jon Altman; Senior CAEPR Fellow Dr William Sanders; Ms Smith; and Professor Dodson, who is the also the Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at ANU.

The ICGP is contributing to a series of governance workshops run by Reconciliation Australia for Indigenous communities. There will also soon be an online ‘toolkit’ based on the workshops, which will provide access to the practical application of the research about governance building and governance networks on the internet.