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Paper short abstract:

This presentation brings Yawuru’s sustainable development philosophy into conversation with the UN SDGs reporting framework to explore whether Indigenous voices, worldviews and lived realities are adequately captured within the national implementation of the SDGs in Australia.

Paper long abstract:

The United Nations announced the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, setting the development agenda for all countries till 2030 (UN 2015). The SDGs’ emphasis on inclusive growth, and their preoccupation with balancing environmental and people-centred concerns marks a sea-change in development thinking. Mid way through the introduction of the SDGs provides a timely opportunity to evaluate whether the agenda of inclusive growth have relevance and effect across the diverse circumstances Indigenous peoples are likely to find themselves in. To realise the SDG’s transformative agenda, it is imperative that we ask what Indigenous peoples can contribute to our understanding of and development of indicators to represent and monitor sustainable development across a range of context. This can help inform whether the current trajectories of development pursuits need to be revisited and reimagined. This presentation brings Yawuru’s sustainable development philosophy into conversation with the UN SDGs reporting framework to explore whether Indigenous voices, worldviews and lived realities adequately captured within the national implementation of the global SDG indicator reporting frameworks in Australia. This presentation will describe the collaborative journeys of working with Yawuru families to explore how wellbeing of families, communities and country is sustained over time and across generations.

Keywords: Capability Approach, Indigenous peoples, Wellbeing, Sustainable development, Indigenous philosophy, UN SDGs