Govt. investment

Warning: Images of deceased persons may appear | See the Yuwaalaraay / Gamilaraay pronunciation guide here

DEG has always wanted to understand the quantum of government investment into service delivery and infrastructure for the Walgett Aboriginal community, so that we can evaluate from the community perspective, the value and effectiveness of that investment.

We discovered that not only could we, an engaged community, find out this information, but that government itself cannot know the value of its investment into the Walgett Aboriginal community. We also want to understand better how government procurement works currently, so that we can propose solutions that will support the procurement of cost-effective service delivery in Walgett. So we engaged Mel Flanagan from Nook Studios to work with Yuwaya Ngarrali's May Miller-Dawkins to illustrate the current situation with government procurement of services for Walgett, and the result is Yuwaya Ngarrali Policy Paper: "Creating better futures with contracts"- How to progress genuine community partnerships and to improve access to information and participation in government procurement and grants, 5 October 2022.

Since 2020, the building and centring of Aboriginal community capabilities and control in Yuwaya Ngarrali’s work has been a key enabler of all other areas as well as an area of significant achievement in itself. During the 2020-2023 period evaluated here important DEG-led efforts resulted in 32 outcomes relating to ACCO capability and control, with a further 51 outcomes associated with community-led emergency response and community troubleshooting. Walgett Elders and community voices have been prominent in national media stories on topics as varied the government’s response to COVID, food and water security, floodplain harvesting and homelessness. DEG and YN’s agenda-setting on food and water security in particular has led to Ministerial visits to Walgett and commitments to long-term solutions to safe drinking water that is having systemic impact. Within our team we have embedded important learning about how to recruit, develop and retain Aboriginal staff members that provide a model that could be shared. And we are developing an ACCO capability unit that could provide an innovative model enabling ACCOs to flourish and lead change in communities across NSW nationally, thereby contributing significant progress in Closing the Gap targets and self-determination.