Background
The Vanuatu Kastom Governance Partnership grew out of conversations between the Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs of Vanuatu (the MNCC) and ACPACS over 2004. The Secretariat of the MNCC asked whether the Centre could offer any support to customary leaders struggling with the extraordinary pressures of rapid change from within and without their own communities, and with the tumble of contradictory pressures that get tagged in the box of 'development'. The Centre responded from a conflict prevention framework - relevant to the Council as customary authorities are traditionally responsible for community peace - and with the MNCC we discussed three foci: conflict transformation (or management), governance, and community development. In 2005 we were joined by AusAID, as a third partner.
For the first phases, the three partners have developed a program of workshops - although they could be better described as facilitated conversations - with customary leaders and others in the community at a number of sites around the country. The workshops are called 'storians' - conversations or storytelling - to try to make it clear that facilitators (whether expatriate or ni-Vanuatu) are not there to present expert knowledge from far away. Rather, the storians provide opportunities for conversations and follow-up actions around critical themes, including reflection, exchange of experience and information sharing on the challenging interactions between customary and state-based approaches to governance. The partnership also includes support for follow-up action plans emerging from storian participants, and support for the management capacities and outreach of the National Council of Chiefs. The partnership assists positive linkages and exchange at a number of levels - among different bodies within Vanuatu (e.g., local customary bodies with provincial government and relevant NGOs), within communities about what they see as the critical issues facing them in the context of the values and directions they hold most dear, and between Australians and ni-Vanuatu, as neighbours. These processes call for reflection from ni-Vanuatu participants, but they also require a context of self-reflection from Australian or expatriate participants, to enable listening and dialogue. We take partnership, with its call to mutuality and commitment, seriously - the Australian parties do not set the agenda in the relationship (although we contribute actively to it). As a result, the partnership is evolving.
The coming phase will include a much greater emphasis on training local facilitators, who can assist the Council of Chiefs to play an active and ongoing role in the support of local peace in the face of rapid social, political and economic change and who can gradually take over the more active parts still played by ACPACS. Anne Brown guides the ACPACS dimension of this partnership, assisted by a team of associates.
Partners
Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs (MNCC); AusAID
Enquiries
Please send enquiries to
a.nolan@uq.edu.au