Report: Initiatives for Indigenous Economic Development in Australia

This report examines the Indigenous Economic Development Strategy in Australia, focusing on initiatives from 2011-2018 aimed at bridging the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. The report centers on two key areas: education and the growth of Indigenous business entrepreneurship. It details government measures such as the Indigenous employment and procurement policy, infrastructure development, and various programs like the Indigenous Business Australia's Business Development and Assistance Programme, Indigenous Grant Policy, and others. The report assesses the success of these initiatives, highlighting the impact of entrepreneurship in fostering economic independence, creating employment opportunities, and encouraging education. It provides statistics on the Indigenous procurement policy and the outcomes achieved in terms of contracts awarded and Indigenous business growth. Furthermore, the report covers initiatives in education, including support for higher secondary education, scholarship programs, and efforts to attract Indigenous students to higher education, along with school-to-work transition programs. The report concludes by emphasizing the pragmatic and encouraging actions taken by the government to address the issues and improve the standard of living within Indigenous communities.

ECONOMICS ASSIGNMENT
In Australia various initiatives have been undertaken for the upliftment of Indigenous community and
tribal area. The report deals with two priority areas of focus under the Indigenous Economic
Development Strategy from 2011-18 to extinguish the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous
community of Australia. The two areas of focus are education, growth of indigenous business
entrepreneurship. The purpose of report is to research measures adopted for achieving these goals and
how successfully they have been implemented.
The initiatives taken by Government of Australia w.r.t. proposed matter are such as like Indigenous
employment and procurement policy, Development of infrastructure in the rural sector; Launch of
Programme like Indigenous Business Australia’ Business Development and Assistance Programme,
Increasing Indigenous Participation initiatives, Increasing Indigenous Participation initiatives,
Indigenous Grant Policy, Indigenous Entrepreneurship Package, Cape York Region Package, Land
Rights. These are some of the initiatives that have been taken by the government of Australia to bridge
the differences. The detailed disclosure of the initiative have been discussed in the later half of the
document.
The Government of Australia has been keen enough to resolve the gaps and improve the standard of
living of rural community/ indigenous community. There role has been very active and has bought in a
major change in the economy and resulted in overall development of the economy. The initiatives to
bring about the required change has been discussed below.
Economic Development through entrepreneurship: The most and effective way to develop the
indigenous community is to achieve a financial and economic independence for them. Entrepreneurship
paves path for that. The few are the benefits of Entrepreneurship such as Building Family Wealth,
Building Community Wealth, Creation of Employment opportunities, Encouragement of uptake of
education; Increase in choice of possibilities, Open opportunities to engage with global world
(Evoma.com, 2018)
The same shall result in people from indigenous community to work upstream and with
entrepreneurship more local people shall come to foreplay. Further, more indigenous workers shall be
hired. As revealed from survey “Supply Nation-registered Indigenous businesses have an Indigenous
employment rate of around 40 per cent compared to an Indigenous employment rate of around 0.7 per
cent across all Australian businesses”. The Commonwealth through the Business Australia have taken
much initiative to build and grow the supply of indigenous business in Australia. The Commonwealth
has been purchasing goods from these entrepreneurs. (Anon., )
The indigenous procurement policy was introduced in 2015 by Government of Australia for leveraging
the Commonwealth’s Multi-billion procurement spend in order to drive the demand of products
manufactured/produced by indigenous people. The three main component of indigenous procurement
policy are like- A target of 3% of the contracts of Commonwealth shall be awarded to indigenous
community people for every financial year, A mandatory set aside of remote contracts ranging in the
amount of $ 80,000 to $ 2,00,000 for indigenous people, Minimum Indigenous community participation
requirements in contracts with a value of around $ 7.5 Million in specific industries.
The results achieved so far by the initiatives are like- In the first two years of operation indigenous
procurement policy has led to 956 indigenous businesses winning $ 594 million worth of contracts. This
has been significant compared to earlier policy where contract won was worth only $6.2 Million in
previous year, These polices are helping the government to engage with the indigenous community and
help in empowering them.

The major objective of the Indigenous Grant policy is manifold encompassing the two main views
which is Increase the involvement of indigenous people in the designing and developing of the
programs that have influence on them, Improvement on the ground service delivery for Australians
living in indigenous community.
A grant shall be financial assistance which shall be provided by the Australian Government on a value
to money basis to a recipient who is living outside the Commonwealth Government. There shall be two
main categories of grants which is like Granted distributed directly to target group: This means the final
assistance shall be provided directly to the bank account of seeker, Grants to third party: Under the said
mechanism, awards are given to service provided to achieve a desired outcome. (Anon., n.d.)
The program is still under process and success of the same has not yet been validated.
Under education following initiatives has been undertaken like Supporting higher secondary
Education: More Commonwealth support has been provided to institutions and colleges. The funds
provided for this purpose has been to the tune of $ 3.97 Billion. The government has also implemented
religious priority Round of funding from the Education Investment Fund. The initiative shall result in
increased focus on development of state of art education in regions where indigenous population is high.
Launch of Scholarship programme for higher education of poor background people . Attracting and
retaining indigenous Students in higher education: Government has taken initiatives to attract
students for higher education by waving fees, providing scholarships. $702 million has been spend for
the purpose. Increase representation of Indigenous Australians in the workforce based on higher
education: Government has set up a committee for this purpose known asIndigenous Higher Education
Advisory Council (IHEAC). (Universties Australia, 2011) School to work transitions: Promotion of
Vocational training and trade training in school so as to make the students imbibe in the workforce. The
amount spent for this purpose amounts to $ 2.5 Billion over 10 year period.
The results achieved through this programme are quite exemplary and many rural society has benefitted
from it and the role of indigenous community in the main stream has seen a growth over the period of a
decade. (Anon., 2018)
Thus, on the basis of above, it shall be concluded that the actions taken by the government are quite
encouraging and they have tried to understand the problem from grass root and tries to eradicate issues
accordingly. The initiative taken are quite pragmatic and yielding results. Thus, the steps taken are quite
appreciating.
References:
Anon., . Economic Development. [Online]
Available at: https://closingthegap.pmc.gov.au/economic-development
[Accessed 12 November 2018].
Anon., 2018. Indigenous Economic Development Strategy. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ilo.org/dyn/youthpol/en/equest.fileutils.dochandle?
p_uploaded_file_id=500
[Accessed 12 November 2018].
Anon., n.d. Overview of the Indigenous Grants Policy. [Online]
Available at: https://www.pmc.gov.au/indigenous-affairs/economic-development/overview-
indigenous-grants-policy
[Accessed 12 November 2018].

Evoma.com, 2018. Entrepreneurship in Economic Development of a Country. [Online]
Available at: https://evoma.com/business-centre/7-roles-of-entrepreneurship-in-economic-
development-of-a-country/
[Accessed 16 November 2018].
Universties Australia, 2011. Submission to the Review of Higher Education Access and Outcomes for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. [Online]
Available at: https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/.../20111125%20UA%20Submission.pdf.aspx
[Accessed 16 November 2018].