International Development
Ninti is regularly contracted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and other international agencies for advice on Indigenous participation on large and complex aid programs. This has involved using Ninti’s expertise in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Samoa, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, Timor Leste, Taiwan, Vanuatu and Vietnam and other countries in the Indo-Pacific in a range of sectors. This work aligns with Ninti’s mission of being a professional services firm that works collaboratively with communities and relevant agencies to achieve social and economic development. Ninti draws on its long history of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and has developed the capacity to translate learning from this experience to a range of development contexts.
Multi-year high-value DFAT activities:
Ninti is now responsible for Indigenous participation (as a sub-contractor) on long-term DFAT activities such as the following:
- Design and Monitoring and Evaluation panel
- Partnerships for Infrastructure (Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Timor-Leste and ASEAN)
- Australia-PNG Subnational Program
- Partnership for Education (PNG)
- Australia-PNG Economic Development Partnership
- Solomon Islands-Australia Partnership for Governance
- PNG Institutional Partnership Program
- Specialist Health Service
- PNG-Australia Transition to Health Program
Design, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation projects:
- Discussion paper for DFAT on contemporary lessons and methods from Indigenous programming practice in Australia that may be relevant for delivery of the Australian international development program
- Development of an interim engagement model that could be used by DFAT’s First Nations Taskforce and development policy areas about considerations for engaging Australian First Nations expertise in the aid program and how to incorporate these considerations
- Indigenous Diplomacy Agenda and Australia’s Development Program Scoping Study, DFAT.
- Designed DFAT’s Junior Professional Officer program, to build a pipeline of Australians in the multilateral system
- ‘Assessing DFAT’s engagement in conflict prevention and peacebuilding through diplomacy, trade, aid, and security. Fieldwork in the Philippines, Myanmar and PNG
- ‘Australia Assists’ Mid-Term Review (DFAT): Fieldwork in Bangladesh and the Pacific
- Protecting Intellectual Property in PNG’s Creative and Cultural Industries
- Independent Review and Completion Report (ICR) of ‘The Indonesia Project’
- Providing Evaluation Committee members to assist DFAT to procure over one billion dollars of contracted services on major contracts in Asia and the Pacific
- Developed an evaluation framework for the ‘Canberra Fellowships’ program
- Providing strategic advice on procurement, performance management and reporting, monitoring and review to DFAT
Ninti was one of the first Indigenous suppliers to be engaged by DFAT under the Indigenous Procurement Policy. Ninti staff have presented at conferences such as:
- DFAT’s ‘Aid Supplier Conference‘ at the ANU on the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses in Australia’s aid program.
- Australasian Aid Conference International development and Indigenous Australia: ‘learning from each other’ at the ANU.
Ninti also features in the Devex and Devpol articles:
- ‘DFAT awards its first indigenous-led aid contract’
- ‘Embedding an indigenous approach to development’
- ‘Five years of DFAT’s Indigenous procurement policy – a steady start’
- ‘Australian aid tries a new approach: Indigenous to indigenous’
- ‘Australia’s contractors in international philanthropy: missing in action?’
- ‘As USAID unveils its Indigenous strategy, it has a lot to learn from DFAT’
- ‘DFAT Indigenous supplier tackles creative IP in PNG’