NLC Community Planning and Development Program: Monitoring and Evaluation – Stage II

In 2020, Ground Up Researchers from CDU began working on Stage 2 of the Northern Land Council
(NLC) Community Planning and Development (CP&D) Program Monitoring and Evaluation project.

This monitoring and evaluation (M&E) research continued to mobilise Ground Up research methods
in building on the work of Stage 1 of the NLC’s CP&D M&E project. These methods
take seriously at the outset, the authority and sovereignty of Aboriginal knowledge authorities and
elders and their various places, and work collaboratively with them to design, undertake and evaluate
research and service delivery from the ground up.
Local researchers guided activities at each site, and negotiated understandings and practices of M&E
with the clan elders who supervise CP&D projects. These researchers received professional training
through CDU’s Indigenous Researcher Initiative, and were supported to undertake further studies
through the Diploma of Indigenous Research, and via CDU’s Indigenous community-based researcher
micro-credentials.
COVID-19 travel restriction had a considerable impact on this round of work but relevant local
support was develped to assist local researchers to work independently on the ground. These
researchers developed relevant and innovative new methods to manage this time, and through this
took on greater levels of responsibility and control in the project. In each project site, CP&D activities
continue to progress in different ways and at different rates.