Project Wrap up | Building Community and Economic Legacy
Greater Whitsunday Communities (GWC) was successful with a Building Better Region’s Fund (Round 5) grant to fund the Project: Building Community and Economic Legacy in the Greater Whitsunday Region between October 2022 and May 2023.
This Project aimed to raise awareness of the concept of Inclusive Growth, and garner support for progressing the concept in a number of pilot projects. By exposing as broad a range of stakeholders as possible to the concept, it is hoped that future major projects and economic opportunities that are progressed in the region are scoped with the Inclusive Growth agenda in mind and enable as many people in the region as possible to benefit from the associated opportunities.
The key activities under this project were:
Establishing an Inclusive Growth Community of Practice within the Greater Whitsunday
regionWorkshops with key stakeholders and content specialists in Isaac and Whitsunday regions
Exploring opportunities for pilot projects
Facilitating a region-wide socio-economic forum with the theme of Inclusive Growth in Mackay
Community of Practice
The Community of Practice comprised representatives from the Mackay, Isaac and Whitsunday Regional Council’s economic development teams, the Queensland Department of State Development, AusIndustry, Regional Development Australia and an agricultural industry group.
The CoP met twice to explore the concept and how it could potentially be applied to existing and planned projects for the region. Individual members of the CoP were also engaged with one-on-one and their feedback was gathered in terms of how best to progress the Inclusive Growth agenda in the region going forward.
Community Workshops
Three workshops took place one in Moranbah (Isaac), Proserpine (Whitsundays) and Mackay. All three were well attended by a broad cross-section of the community and presentations from Professor Allan Dale, JCU, and Elise Parups, Queensland Social Enterprise Council, were well received
A number of common themes came out of these workshops including:
Improved Collaboration
Common and positive narrative
Articulate social legacy
Measure social impact
SME participation
Inclusive Growth is generally accepted as necessary for the sustainable growth of the region where both the social and economic elements are equally planned for in any strategic initiative. A number of recommendations and potential pilot projects were derived from the outcomes of these key activities were made in the final project report. There is opportunity for GWC to leverage the activities associated with these initiatives to progress the Inclusive Growth agenda in the Greater Whitsunday region. Read the full Executive Summary of the Building Community and Economic Legacy in the Greater Whitsunday Region Report here.