NTG Local Decision Making – Ground Up M&E – Stage I

The Department of the Chief Minister, Northern Territory Government, engaged the Ground Up team at the Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University, to support the development of locally-led monitoring and evaluation processes to accompany the NTG’s Local Decision Making (LDM) strategy. This work has taken place in two projects sites – Kalkaringi and Alice Springs Town Camps, and has drawn on considerable experience of this team with other collaborative Monitoring and Evaluation work in remote communities across the NT.

The purpose to the project was to:

  • develop processes for reflecting on and improving LDM collaborations as they proceed
  • articulate strengths and challenges emerging in the development of new LDM agreements, organisations and service delivery networks
  • learn about and negotiate productive ways to embed Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) in collaborative work between government and local organisations and individuals
  • recruit and support local researcher development and employment opportunities

Employing a research approach that we call ‘Ground Up’, we worked collaboratively with members of the Gurindji Aboriginal Corporation, and local researchers in Kalkaringi as well as staff of Tangentyere Council Aboriginal Corporation and local researchers in Alice Springs to begin developing processes for Monitoring and Evaluating the NTG Local Decision Making (LDM) Strategy relevant in these places. These sites offer detailed case studies of early M&E development in particular places, and highlight how this work may be carried out quite differently in different locations.