Indigenous Community Governance Project Understanding, Building and Sustaining Effective Governance in Rural, Remote and Urban Indigenous Communities Yarnteen Corporation: Governing for sustained economic development in NSW   Diane Smith in collaboration with Leah Armstrong (Executive Director, Yarnteen) The focus of this case study was the governance of the highly successful Yarnteen Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Corporation, based in Newcastle, NSW. For over a decade now, Yarnteen has built a reputation based on the success of its development outcomes (on economic, social, community, and cultural fronts), and its stable, effective governance. Yarnteen specialises in coordinating and delivering employment, training, and enterprise development programs. Amongst other things, it runs a successful bulk warehousing and bagging facility for grains and fertiliser—Port Hunter Commodities—at Kooragang Island. It has succeeded in gaining accreditation by Australian Quarantine to conduct ‘cleaning’ of non-compliant imports—one of the few warehousing operations to do so in the Newcastle Port area. Yarnteen also owns a Community Training and Resource Centre at Garden Suburbs, a 100-acre Cultural Camp in Wollombi, and two other commercial properties. Yarnteen operated a CDEP during 1992-2003 and helped establish Youloe-ta Indigenous Development Association Inc., which participated in the Indigenous Employment Centre trial, placing 20 people into full-time work and has since become an Indigenous Employment Centre. Yarnteen has become the only Indigenous foundation partner in the Microsoft ‘Unlimited Potential’ program and in 2002 received the CDEP Achievement Award for Innovation in recognition of a website it developed in partnership with Microsoft Australia to facilitate networking between CDEP organisations. The case study aimed to unpack the concept of ‘effective’ or ‘good’ governance by exploring the underlying dimensions, processes, relationships and other factors that have been instrumental in Yarnteen’s apparent governance effectiveness. It then attempted to document how those governance arrangements were put in place and have been sustained over time. In this way, the relationship between ‘effective governance’ and successful economic development outcomes was investigated. Another aim of the case study was to identify the extent to which Yarnteen’s governance arrangements could provide transferable governance lessons for other Indigenous community organisations pursuing economic development goals—an issue also of great relevance for policy-makers. Beginning with the construction of an organisational governance ‘history’— based on the perspectives and ‘stories’ of the people involved with Yarnteen at different stages (e.g. management, board members, staff, employees, business partners, community members)—the research for this case study has now been completed.   As well as working towards the project’s research objectives, Diane worked with the Board to help with the self-evaluation its own governance, and has presented those findings to the Board. Currently, Leah and Diane are working to coauthor a paper on Yarnteen urban governance and economic development. Papers arising from this research include: 1996 'CDEP as urban enterprise: The case of Yarnteen Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Corporation, Newcastle', CAEPR Discussion Paper No. 114, by Diane Smith. [Abstract only] Click here to view abstract. 2006 'Evaluating governance effectiveness: A facilitated process with the Board of Yarnteen Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Corporation', ICGP Case Study Report No. 2, by Diane Smith. [697 KB PDF document] Click here to download document.