Maori home-ownership plummets...

The proportion of Māori owning their homes has fallen by 20% between 1986 and the last census, 2013.

This is compared to a total decline of just over 15%.

Pasifika communities have seen home ownership decline by almost 35%.

The figure below graphs the changes since 1991:

There are significant differences between regions, with Whangarei, Rotorua, Hastings, Tauranga and South and West Auckland seeing the largest drops:

Home ownership is a part of the Kiwi dream, what use to go under the proverb of a The Half Gallon Quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise. Yeah this has gone the way of the American dream and dinosaurs but it says something of this economy when Maori are increasingly excluded despite festishising the so-called Maori economy...

Full report and Spreadsheets by Statistics NZ available here

And some good news from Lincoln...

Our new DVC MAori and Communities...

Dr Charlotte Marewa Severne

Made Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit

For services to Māori and science

Dr Charlotte Severne has been a strong advocate and mentor for Māori students in science and a trail blazer in assisting Māori asset-owning entities to understand and better utilise science and research to sustainably manage and develop their taonga tukuiho.

Dr Severne has been elected to a number of Tuwharetoa entities. She chairs both the Lake Rotoaira Trust and its Forest Trust. She has been involved with the Opepe Farm Trust for five years, the first three years as an interim trustee working to bring the insolvent Trust into a consolidated position, and has been Deputy Chair of the Trust. She worked in senior management for the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) for 12 years including roles as Chief Scientist Ocean Research and Chief Scientist Māori Development. She was responsible for rapidly developing NIWA’s Māori Development Unit Te Kuwaha o Taihoro Nukurangi, which is still a successful model for integrating Vision Maatauranga in science institutions. She is currently Deputy Vice Chancellor Māori and Communities at Lincoln University. Dr Severne was a Ministerial Appointment to the MBIE Science Board in 2014 and was previously a Ministerial Appointment to the Bioethics Council.

Charlotte, front and centre, with whanau and friends after powhiri on her starting as DVC Maori and Communities at Lincoln University, 

Accusations of corruption

Ongoing accusations of corruption surround ex-Lincoln consultant Roger Pikia.

Seems Mr Pikia has woven a merry web of directorships and companies and has ended up in hot water....

Roger Pikia in hot water?

To be fair, this does seem to be the current modus operandi for Aoteroa NZ's politico-economic elites...

Evidence of Mr. Pikia's fraudulent past surfaced when he was employed by (now ex) Vice Chancellor Andy West. Lincoln has imploded since Dr. West's demise, with four of the DVCs of his error era having left or about to leave. Again to be fair Dr. West opened Lincoln's collectives eyes to the so-called Maori economy and he helped to launch the unfortunately still-stuttering Whenua Strategy.

We should not be surprised that a slew of Maori consultants appeared to suck at the teat of institutional largesse. Institutional racism means these institutions are poorly placed to collaborate with an economically growing and culturally distinct sector.

We can, however, be disappointed.

Very disappointed...

Helen Clark: Risk and Vulnerability Analysis Special Session World Humanitarian Summit, Istanbul May 23-24, 2016

The question for Ms Clarke was on why is tackling risk is so important not just for the world humanitarians but also for sustainable development.

Thank you, one of the themes which UNDP run through all the major agenda setting conferences last year was that if development isn’t risk informed it cannot be sustainable development, at the most fundamental level we see natural disasters either shaking down or washing away or drying up development gains and so not to approach development with a risk informed lens is to endanger every investment that’s made in development and to probably set development up for very significant setbacks and indeed for the scale of humanitarian response that is sadly so often in call before.  If we were looking just at times of risk around the natural disasters clearly where you build your infrastructure, the strength to which you construct it, the level of engagement with your community and being aware of risks and being able to participate in and help direct the nature of risk reduction, these are all highly relevant to sustainable development but then I think the sessions are also calling our attention to interconnected risks and I think if we look at…what are the real risks to not achieving a goal like sustainable development goal one on the eradication of extreme poverty, what we will see I think is increasing the extreme poverty concentrated in a cluster of countries with certain characteristics which will be deep and entrenched inequalities, poor governance, risk of conflict and exposure to natural disaster and these things all tend to of course reinforce each other in a downward spiral to crisis so I think we need to be very conscious of the interconnected risks and address them comprehensively and that is why a summit like this one which is very much seeking to bring the shared analysis of humanitarian’s development act, human rights act as peaceful as whatever analysis, bring these analysis together and scanning the horizon to see where the risks are.  In a sense we know about the natural disaster risk, it may not be that easy to overcome in the year of climate change when we’re looking at worsening weather for the next 60 or 70 years but I think we more or less understand what has to be done with these more complex interconnected risks in countries which are fragile which is the hardest way we’ve come and sadly have seen some of the most profound calls for humanitarian relief at this time.

A follow up question sought to draw Ms Clarke's opinions on the future vision for sustainable development…

Well I might and address the platform just so the total support of … there’s been a lot of consultation go into the global risk platform and I think it can only be a good thing but I really want to concentrate my comment on sight, if we’re going to get risk informed development when we build and support national and local capacities to drive that development so often these discussions about us as developing the national development or other organisations but development has to happen in countries, it has to be led by governments, local, sub-national, by communities, it falls to society to participation.  I was thinking as I was listening and particularly to … about some of the really exciting things you see at the local level with governance taken into their own hands to really push ahead. I remember back in the early in the second decade of this century there was an appalling drought in Niger, people died.  By the time the next one came Niger had taken action itself, it used to have partners supporting them but it came up with its own programme for food security and called it Nigerians Nurturing Nigerians, the three N’s campaign and as a result of that they have in place an early warning system that told them that another bad drought was coming but there was time to get systems in place and growing the international pathways and so on. That’s in the basis for moving on to other initiatives, I think the insurances it spreads has an enormous role to play in getting the local products that support the small holders in … countries like it.  I can think of another example in Kenya, this is an example they did to prices.  The 2007 election was not a good experience in Kenya, it was a bad experience but the experience was that where the local communities and their local peace architecture because they knew there was potential risks, they could hold in peace and that was then … next time to have a peaceful election so my plea really is can we all acknowledge that we’re in this business to support locals and national … building the capacity to do it themselves, that’s development, that’s how we’ll truly sustain the risk in formal development.

Many thanks to Ms Emma Hall for the transciption :)

STATEMENT OF COMMITMENTS FROM HUMANITARIAN SCHOLARS AT WORLD HUMANITARIAN SUMMIT

Just back from the first World Humanitarian Summit, Istanbul, Turkey. 

As academics, we had a minor but not unimportant role. The following statement provides a normative baseline for future research and is signed by over 50 academics, many of them world leading scholars in the area of human rights. The first commitment opens Indigenous Knowledge as having an important future role in research supporting humanitarian action for our communities.

"The future of effective responses to humanitarian crises depends on developing a strong base of knowledge about current emergencies, future threats and their contexts; the populations affected by these emergencies; and the legal frameworks, institutions and interventions that seek to meet humanitarian needs and resolve these crises. Those engaged in humanitarian studies, which includes research and education, are essential to this effort.

Humanitarian studies critically examines the ways in which humanitarian crises originate and evolve, how they affect people, institutions and societies, and the responses they trigger. This field is not simply about being an instrumental partner to humanitarian actors in addressing the policy and practice issues of today. Humanitarian studies is about critically engaging with forces and factors that create positive change in order to imagine and achieve a different future for the world.

Humanitarian studies scholars present at the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) and the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) make the following six commitments:

1. We commit to make humanitarian research more collaborative and inclusive, especially with non-traditional knowledge actors and affected communities, and to ensure that knowledge is relevant to policy and practice.

2. We commit to research the impacts of the WHS - both positive and negative - on those affected by humanitarian emergencies and the future of humanitarian action. This research will include assessing the fulfillment and non-fulfillment of commitments made by WHS participants; the impact of those commitments; and the process and history of the summit itself.

3. We commit to further develop and adopt evidence-based approaches relevant to humanitarian research. Member states and humanitarian actors should support the achievement of this commitment by making humanitarian research and education a political, financial, and operational priority.

4. We commit to localize humanitarian research and education within the regions and communities affected by emergencies by recognizing, establishing, supporting and collaborating with research and educational institutions in crisis-affected areas. Member states should work to remove political, regulatory, and financial barriers that impede research and prevent the development of research institutions in crisis-affected areas.

5. We commit to improve the impact and increase the use of humanitarian research by encouraging and supporting trans-disciplinary research that collaborates with non-traditional knowledge actors. To this end, we will strive to make our research accessible and relevant beyond traditional venues, such as conferences and publications, by placing the enfranchisement of affected communities themselves at the center of our work.

6. We commit to protect academic freedom, uphold scientific ethics, and be accountable for the research we do, how it is undertaken, and how it is used. We will seek to make our results and data as open and public as possible, ensuring that our ethical obligations to the populations we research and those we research them with come first."

Dorothea Hilhorst

Nathaniel Raymond

David Cantor

Alpaslan Özerdem

Doris Schopper

Oreste Foppiani

Galya B Ruffer

Graciela Loarche

François Grunewald

Michael van Rooyen

Michel Veuthey

Karl Blanchet

Ranjana Mukhopadhyaya

Lucatello Simone

Alexander Betts

Dan Maxwell

Gilles Carbonier

Antonio Donini

Simon Lambert

Alex de Waal

Dennis Dijkzeul

Joost Herman

Mihir Bhatt

Julia Steets

Kirsten Johnson

Bertrand Taithe

Wendy Fenton

Kristin Sandvik

Mitulo Silengo

Lydia Poole

Ibrahim Awad

Mahbuba Nasreen

Jacob Opadeyi

Wasseem Abaza

Ezzeddine Abdelmoula

Michael Barnett

Jyotsna Puri

Tanja Granzow

Cassie Kenney

Jeremy Collymore

Andrew Collins

Catherine Bragg

Alistair Edgar

Martine Najem

Seun Kolade

Mukesh Kapila

Kirsten Geldorf

Helen Young

Graham Sem

Anna Goos

Susan Akram

Patrick Vink

Wolf Dieter Eberwein

Randolph Kent

Bonaventure Rutinwa

With Professor Thea Hilhorst, Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction