Leadership and coalitions

The CHSSC provides research and learning support to the DFAT-funded Balance of Power (BOP) initiative that is being delivered by DT Global.

The BOP initiative seeks to shift the attitudes and norms that prevent women from being perceived as legitimate leaders in Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu. Central to the approach of BOP is a focus on working through the values and culture of the specific context, bringing together stakeholders who are intrinsically motivated to work as part of locally led coalitions for reform.

The CHSSC supports BOP to design research strategies, acts as a critical friend to program staff, provides peer review and research training  and supports research uptake.

The CHSSC’s contribution to this project is led by Director Lisa Denney and Senior Research Fellow Mardi Grundy.

The CHSSC is working with the Pacific Community (SPC) in 2024-25 to prepare a Pacific Youth Development Framework (PYDF). The framework aims to increase investment in youth across development sectors in Pacific countries and enhance regional accountability to the region’s youth and to youth-related international commitments such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the UNDHR.

Work includes: i) a desk review of existing youth accountability mechanisms at the global level; ii) consultation with key regional stakeholders; iii) preparing a first draft of the framework; iv) facilitating consultation on the draft including through providing rapporteur services to two high level regional meetings. A final version of the framework will be completed in 2025 and presented for endorsement at the Pacific Island’s Forum Leaders Meeting in Honiara, Solomon Islands.

This work is led by CHSSC Research Fellow Aidan Craney and supported by Adjunct Research Fellow Allan Illingworth.

The CHSSC provides monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) support to the DFAT-funded Local Leadership and Collective Action Program (LLCAP) which is being delivered by The Voice Inc (TVI) in Papua New Guinea.

The five-year LLCAP program (2022-2027) aims to support a network of leaders and groups acting on some of Papua New Guinea’s most challenging issues. It does this by growing dialogue, knowledge and debate on an issue, then supporting leaders and organisations taking action on that issue and, around those leaders, encouraging a broader coalition of actors to bring increased resources to the reform objective.

The CHSSC works alongside TVI staff to prepare for, facilitate and report on six-monthly pause and reflect sessions and assists TVI to generate and share learning about collective action in Papua New Guinea.

The CHSSC’s contribution to LLCAP is currently led by Senior Research Fellow Mardi Grundy with support from Adjunct Research Fellow Allan Illingworth.

The CHSSC is contributing to a four-year (2022-2025) research project focused on youth leadership and civic engagement in the Pacific, funded by an ARC Discovery grant and The Asia Foundation.

With approximately two thirds of people in the Pacific aged under 35, the research aims to better understand pathways and barriers to their individual and collective leadership development. The project will provide insights into how young people in the Pacific navigate the challenges and opportunities available for them to develop as leaders and will engage directly with policy making and programming decision-makers to help them develop positive and appropriate interventions.

Since 2022, the project has been collecting case studies of youth leaders from different disciplines/sectors in Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu. In 2024, the project focused on working directly with The Asia Foundation, the Pacific Community and National Advisory Committees to develop strategies to ensure the findings from the project will have positive implications practically, academically and in the communities within which the project is taking place.

In 2025 the project will begin to publish findings and continue to work with governments and other development industry actors to work towards improving youth policy and programming.

The CHSSC’s contribution to this project is led by former Director Professor Chris Roche and supported by Research Fellow Aidan Craney.  They are working with the project’s Chief Investigator Professor Helen Lee from La Trobe University, Associate Professor Patrick Vakaoti from the University of Otago, Dr Mema Motusaga, La Trobe PhD Scholar Kolaia Raisele and staff from the Pacific Community and The Asia Foundation.

In 2022-2026, the CHSSC is partnering with DT Global to provide support for monitoring and evaluation, research, learning and knowledge dissemination activities in the DFAT-funded Women Leading and Influencing (WLI) program. WLI is a four-year $8m program which offers a range of developmental leadership offerings to Pacific scholars studying at Australian universities and institutions.

Our support includes the development, implementation and ongoing refinement of tools and approaches for capturing the impact of the program and identifying lessons learned through implementation as well as conducting research and analysis to support program delivery and contribute to the body of knowledge on women's leadership in the Pacific.

Some of the highlights from our work to date include:

• Supporting Women's Leadership During COVID-19: Women Leading and Influencing in the Pacific, a study of how the program supported participants and alumni to exercise their leadership in the COVID-19 response.
• Approaches to Engaging Men in Support of Women’s Leadership in the Pacific, a review of effective approaches to working with men based on literature and consultations with Pacific stakeholders. A short article based on the review - Gender equality, the Pacific way – was published in the Lowy Institute Interpreter and co-author Mercy Masta was interviewed for the Development Intelligence Lab’s podcast ’The Readout’.
• Case studies of WLI alumni leading change in their countries and communities.
• A series of practice briefs on WLI’s approach to supporting developmental leadership.
• Co-design and delivery of a six-month online leadership development program – LeadershipConnect – in collaboration with The Asia Foundation Pacific.
• An online event co-hosted by WLI, Australia Awards Africa, and Australia Awards in Indonesia, which brought together disability leaders from Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific to share their experiences of leading change.

The CHSSC’s work is currently led by Senior Research Fellows Elisabeth Jackson and Mardi Grundy.

Between 2020 and 2023, the CHSSC partnered with Bandung Independent Living Center (BILiC) in Indonesia to explore how persons with disabilities’ identities and life histories shape their leadership practice.

Funded by the Developmental Leadership Program (DLP), the research drew on in-depth interviews with 55 disability leaders from both rural and urban areas across Indonesia, examining how they understand leadership, how they become leaders, what strategies they use to advocate for change, and what this means for how development organisations can support persons with disabilities to lead change.

Six members of the team were persons with disabilities who themselves have a strong leadership identity and are influential within the Indonesian disability movement. Their lived experiences helped shape the design of the research and the interpretation of the findings.

Key publications from the research include:

• A report outlining the findings of the research, Finding Self, Leading Others: Leadership Journeys of Persons with Disabilities in Indonesia (available in both English and Indonesian).
• An executive summary of the report (available in both English and Indonesian).
• A short interview: ‘I Had to Learn to Advocate for Myself’: In Conversation with Indonesian Disability Activist Nur Syarif Ramadhan.
• A blog, Postcard from Flores: Conversations with Indonesian Disability Activists

The project was co-led by Senior Research Fellow Elisabeth Jackson and Adjunct Research Officer Eka Liu in collaboration with Ishak Salim, Cucu Saidah, Joni Yulianto, Nur Syarif Ramadhan, Yuyun Yuningsih, Robandi, Panji Surya Putra Sahetapy, Sen Sendjaya and Erin Wilson.

From 2013 to 2023, the CHSSC partnered with the University of Birmingham (UoB) and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to implement the Developmental Leadership Program (DLP). This DFAT-funded research partnership explored how leadership, power and political processes drives or blocks successful development.

The third phase of the Developmental Leadership Program (DLP3) ran from 2019 to June 2023. The seven research projects that were commissioned during this phase focused on exploring how leadership is understood in different contexts, where leaders come from, how leaders collectively influence institutions, and how developmental leadership can be supported.

The seven research projects covered three countries in Asia and four countries in the Pacific. All projects were led or conducted in partnership with a researcher or institution based in the country of study with local researchers undertaking the majority of the field work.  The aggregate results of the research conducted during this phase were captured in a synthesis paper Navigating Everyday Leadership.

A key focus of the CHSSC’s contribution to DLP3 was understanding how and under what circumstances evidence generated through these research projects does or does not inform policy and practice.

In 2022-23, the CHSSC partnered with UoB to develop the curriculum and training materials for a training course on developmental leadership which was informed by DLP research. The five-module course was delivered to DFAT staff for the first time in the last quarter of 2023. The course is now being reviewed and revised and will be delivered for the second time in the second half of 2025.

The CHSSC’s contribution to DLP3 was led by former CHSSC Director Professor Chris Roche with support from then Principal Research Fellow Lisa Denney, then PhD Research Scholar Ujjwal Krishna, Senior Research Fellow Elisabeth Jackson and Senior Outreach and Learning Advisor Chris Adams.

In 2023-2024, the CHSSC worked with  Coalitions for Change - a partnership between The Australian Government and The Asia Foundation in the Philippines - to develop case studies of developmental policy reforms in  different contexts. Each of the three cases demonstrate politically smart and learning-oriented ways of working within challenging political contexts and share similarities to the development entrepreneurship approach CfC have pioneered.

Key research outputs to date include:

Case Study No. 1: Reducing Plastic Pollution in Kenya by Clare Cummings and Francis Oremo, including an interview with Professor Judi Wakhungu, a former Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Water and Natural Resources, who championed the ban on thin plastic bags in Kenya.

Case Study No. 2: Securing Reserved Seats for Women in Vanuatu's Municipal Councils by Allan Mua Illingworth and Elizabeth Faerua, including an interview with the late Dorosday Kenneth-Watson, former Director of Women's Affairs, who was instrumental in securing reserved seats for women.

Case Study No. 3: Securing Legal Recognition for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Indonesia by Joni Yulianto, Adi Suryadini and Elisabeth Jackson.

Synthesis paper: Initial Evidence on the Relevance of "Development Entrepreneurship" Outside of the Philippines by Lisa Denney, Jamie Faustino and Rene Sanapo.