In 2020, the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (now Centre for Indigenous Policy Research) and the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute, in partnership with First Nation partners, commenced an applied research project – The Indigenous Governance of Development: Self-Determination and Success Project – to explore the ways First Nations in Australia are exercising their collective self-governance to pursue their own development agendas.

The start of the IGD project occurred at the same time the COVID-19 Pandemic took hold across the world. In that extraordinary context, we asked ourselves: What impacts is the COVID-19 Pandemic having on Indigenous nations, communities and their members? How are Indigenous organisations successfully adapting in order to govern the impacts of the pandemic on their community members? What effective actions are they taking? What governance innovations are they creating? Are there any common strategic practices and learnings that can be identified from their combined successes to support the disaster resilience of Indigenous organisations, communities and nations in the future?

To answer these questions, we decided to survey a selection of Indigenous organisations across Australia, in combination with follow-up online interviews with them. This paper reports on the insights and findings.

Nationwide, we witnessed Indigenous organisations working at the vanguard of actions to protect their communities. In recognition of that widespread agency, we adopted a capability lens for the research and analysis of evidence. This led us to propose a framework to better understand the particular effectiveness of crisis resilience and governance innovation that Indigenous organisations were mobilising during the pandemic. We have defined this capability as ‘adaptive self-determination’, and in this paper identify its key constituent functionings and substantial benefits: institutional, normative and cognitive.

While much of the literature on Indigenous self-determination focuses on it being a ‘right’ of individuals communities, nations and groups, our analysis indicates it also operates as a daily practice that is demonstrated in the work of incorporated Indigenous organisations. These findings hold valuable learnings for formulating more targeted disaster policy and funding support to Indigenous organisations, which have proven they are adept and extremely effective working at the frontline of disasters such as the pandemic.