Helping Regional Communities Prepare for Drought Initiative

BUILDING DROUGHT PREPAREDNESS IN REGIONAL COMMUNITIES

A partnership between FRRR and the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, funded by the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

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With much of the country enjoying a good season, it is the ideal time to ensure your community is prepared for the next drought. That’s why we’re developing a program focused on strengthening and building drought preparedness in regional communities.

Thanks to the support of the Australian Government through the Future Drought Fund, over the next three years about $30 million will be invested in regional communities through the Helping Regional Communities Prepare for Drought Initiative. The aims of the program are to strengthen and improve the ability of agriculture-dependent communities to adapt, reorganise or transform in response to changing temperature, increasing variability and scarcity of rainfall and changing seasons, for improved economic, environmental and social wellbeing.

It will do this by investing in projects that seek to strengthen social and community networking, support, engagement and wellbeing. There are five parts to the program, including grants, activities to strengthen leadership, access to expertise to support community-led activities, mentoring support and networking opportunities. It will be delivered by FRRR and the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation (ARLF), who will each take the lead on different components of the program.

For a quick snapshot of this program, watch this video.

 Initiative Elements

Community Impact Program

Grants between $200,000 and $500,000 provided by FRRR, plus on the ground support.

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Leadership Development Activities

Impact Grant recipients can also access a range of leadership development activities, offered by ARLF.

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Expertise Pool

Access to specialist expertise (curated by FRRR).

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Small Network Grants

Grants available to develop and deliver one-off events or initiatives (led by FRRR).

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National Mentoring Program

Bringing together those who want to contribute to their community’s drought resilience with experienced mentors (led by ARLF).

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National Learning Network

Connecting individuals and organisations committed to building drought resilience, so they can learn from and support one another (led by ARLF).

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Evaluation and Monitoring

Nous Group is working with FRRR and ARLF to evaluate the impact of the Future Drought Fund’s Helping Regional Communities Prepare for Drought Initiative across two and a half years. The evaluation will seek to understand to what extent the Initiative has enabled rural, regional and remote communities to prepare for future drought through strengthened social resilience, local capacity and capability building.

Nous Group has prepared a mid-term report which outlines the interim evaluation of activities in the 16 months to April 2024. It combines findings of the five streams of the Initiative which include grants, leadership development activities, including mentoring, an online network and access to expert advice. The report confirms good progress is being made towards strengthening community capacity and the social resilience of agriculture-dependent communities to prepare for the impacts of drought in more than 250 locations across Australia.

To see the findings of the mid-term evaluation you can access the full report below, along with deep dive impact case studies and the overall approach we are taking to learn of the Initiative’s impact.

If you have any questions about the evaluation, please email futuredrought@frrr.org.au.

The video above provides a summary overview of the Mid-Term Evaluation report.