The Pacific knowledge we can bring to the table adds value to the work of other agencies and increases the effectiveness of policy development and service delivery. Current research projects include:
Research Team: Auckland
The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs Research Team has grown not only in terms of researcher capacity, but also in regards to larger, and, more diversified research projects lined up for the future. Please find a brief list of projects completed, current, and future. If you have any further enquires about the research team, please contact us directly on research@mpia.govt.nz
The Research Team has been very busy over the past few months. First and foremost we are undertaking a significant research project that looks at Pacific collective wealth.
Mobilising Pacific Wealth: Auckland
The Mobilising Pacific Wealth project is seeking to “bridge the gaps” that exist in understandings of Pacific wealth. With a view to future opportunities, our team is currently exploring how wealth is being created, stored and mobilised within Pacific communities. We intend to also explore potential diasporic and generational differences between Pacific born and New Zealand born ideology surrounding wealth.
The project is designed in a four-phase framework; literature review, fono, key informant interviews and finally, community dissemination. The first few months of the project were full with the tasks of compiling literature, and, undertaking nine community fono that represented the diversity of the five main Pacific ethnic groups in the Auckland region. These are: Samoan, Tongan, Niuean, Fijian and Cook Island. This was a “full-on” time for our small team of researchers, but we were successfully able to complete these, gaining rich insight into community perspectives of collective wealth.
The interview stage, or phase three of the project shifted researcher focus to exploring an in depth understanding of the “mobilisation” ofPacific wealth. This was specifically around how best to utilise collective resources and mobilise collective strengths. The mobilisation process is central to understanding how to transfer that wealth into opportunities that can inform the development of agency-specific and cross-sector initiatives as well as empower Pacific communities and address community-identified priorities.
For this project our research team works alongside several partner agencies including: the Department of Labour, the Ministry’s of: Social Development, Education, Health, and Economic Development; the Families Commission, the Tertiary Education Commission and Statistics New Zealand. These partner agencies provide effective consultation on the: research process, design, development of policy options and projects based on these research findings. More importantly, with their involvement we hope that the evidence that we develop with these partner agencies will lead to actionable outcomes for the community.
Our Research Team is also working to build on these significant partner relationships, with a further research projects in the pipe-line for 2010. This is an exciting, but busy time for ourteam, but we are motivated by a strong desire to make a difference in their community.
Please refer to MPIA research updates for additional information on the project, or alternatively please contact the research team with your enquiry directly: research@mpia.govt.nz
