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Empowered Communities Partnership joint decision-making: lessons learned review
The Empowered Communities (EC) Partnership is an Indigenous designed and led place-based reform partnership and aims to improve socioeconomic outcomes and close the disparity gap on the ground in two to three generations. The partnership is a collaboration between 10 significant Indigenous regions (urban, regional and remote) with government and represents an important national reform agenda.
The review’s purpose was multi-faceted. A primary focus was to identify the success factors for joint decision-making along with opportunities for further improvement. The review provides valuable insights that can be applied to further build the EC Partnership including in new partnerships between EC regions and other government agencies and to help support partnership building with Indigenous people across the Australian Government. The review also offers a foundation for ongoing learning and evaluation for EC and other partnerships between Indigenous people and government.
The EC Partnership is widely considered to be a highly advanced model of Shared Decision Making (SDM) across government. It has set a clear benchmark for how place-based initiatives aimed at Closing the Gap in place should operate. The review finds EC SDM is an effective model for empowering Indigenous people. The review’s findings and recommendations provide a case for change.
The report is presented in four key parts.
- An overview of the policy context for EC and SDM.
- The research scope and approach, incorporating the method and limitations.
- The research findings covering what’s working well and what could be improved in the six domains for SDM.
- A brief conclusion.
