[ad_1]
Maania Tealei Photography
Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu pouārahi Ivy Harper says many whānau have gone from state dependency to thriving thanks to its agency’s investment.
Many whānau Māori in Te Waipounamu have shifted from state dependency to thriving thanks to Whānau Ora funding their business ideas, the commissioning agent says.
Independent research released by Christchurch-based Ihi Research on Thursday shows that Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu’s latest Wave 16 social impact investment was “very good value for money”.
The South Island Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency – a collective of eight iwi delivering social and health services – invested $2.7 million spread across 83 Māori-led initiatives, or 5000 individuals from Nelson to Bluff.
Even the minimum impact implied an economic benefit of $2.40 for every $1 of investment, with the value of increased life satisfaction combined found to be at least $7.2m, the latest statistics show.
The success was celebrated at the Whānau Ora Symposium 2023, which kicked off in Ōtautahi on Thursday.
Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu pouārahi Ivy Harper said the returns had “seen whānau shift from state dependency and subsistence living towards independence and wealth creation”.
Maania Tealei Photography
Mana whenua representative Dave Brennan and Hon Rino Tirakatene at the Whānau Ora symposium in Christchurch.
Whānau involved in Wave 16 – the name given to its funding rounds to enable whānau Māori to be self-reliant – also reported higher life satisfaction than the general Māori population.
It emphasised the “enormous value of direct whānau investment, in a social, cultural and in an economic sense”.
In partnership with Professor Paul Dalziel and Distinguished Professor Caroline Saunders, co-directors of the Agribusiness & Economics Research Unit (AERU) at Lincoln University, Ihi Research measured the impact of commissioning to determine a return on investment (ROI).
The positive impact for the 5000 Māori in the Wave round had a net value of up to $87,433 per person, reflecting how much extra income they would have to receive to get the same increase in life satisfaction.
The overall return was likely to be much more as the wellbeing impacts rippled through all participants.
Harper said the report was not the first to back the Whānau Ora approach but was remarkable in terms of singling out the economic return on investment.
It supported an improved space for Māori at a “fraction of the spending allocated to traditional agencies”.
Ihi Research director Dr Catherine Leonard described Wave investment in capability as “turning the dial for whānau”.
“It emphasises, too, the need to value outcomes that are valued by Māori – the right of whānau to strive and thrive on their terms based on their own notions of wellbeing and success.”
Dalziel said using the New Zealand Treasury’s extended cost-benefit analysis tool, the AERU confirmed that the return on investment was “significant and more than covered the total investment for Wave 16”.
The results demonstrated the huge economic value of supporting Māori to invest in their own futures, he said.
“Many impacts are profound but impossible to quantify, such as increased hope and intergenerational aspiration.”
Other impacts were measurable in economic terms, such as increased life satisfaction reported by project participants.
“The public investment of close to $3 million in Wave 16 has provided very good value for money.”
CHRIS SKELTON/Stuff
Tā Mark Solomon says the agency is working to fulfil the dreams and aspirations of whānau Māori.
The agency’s chairperson, Tā Mark Solomon, said whānau set up businesses ranging from hairdressers to gymnasiums.
One 12-year-old girl was also able to set up a poi business in Dunedin in 2015 and went on to sell them at All Blacks games.
The Wave initiative was just one of 12 projects the commissioning agency ran, serving about 185,000 people a year.
“The whānau that we’re working with, it’s their dreams and aspirations that we’re trying to fulfil.
“We believe the solution comes from the people.”
But there was not enough buy-in from the Crown, he said, evidenced by a finding from the Auditor-General that said Crown agencies were not supporting Whānau Ora enough despite the evidence of its success.
The two-day symposium attracted more than 400 people, and was a “celebration” of the mahi from the 71-odd non-governmental organisations it partners with.
Whānau Ora
Whānau Ora has launched a new campaign, Our Future is Māori, aimed at lifting Māori aspirations and applying Māori solutions to turn around negative statistics.
[ad_2]