Cities and Settlement

The Cities and Settlement Initiative (CSI) aims to improve the economic participation of refugees in Australia. Our analysis tells us this would deliver a triple dividend: benefiting vulnerable Australians; boosting the budget; and improving community cohesion. We seek better governance and coordination connected to partnerships and delivery at the local level. Our objectives include:

• streamlining arrangements between federal, state and local governments;
• developing place-based approaches to integrated service delivery that provides holistic support to the individual refugee and their family unit and improves economic participation
• ensuring that work and English language education can be pursued in tandem
• ensuring that the specific needs of refugee women are appropriately addressed
• identifying best practice to be replicated and scaled; and
• knitting more tightly together selected regional and capital cities and providers undertaking refugee settlement.

CSI is supported by the Myer Foundation and the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation and follows CPD’s February 2017 report, Settling Better: Reforming refugee employment and settlement services, released with the support of the Boston Consulting Group. Learn more about the initiative here.