Tackling marginalisation and oppression with restorative finance.
As part of the third Edmund Hillary Fellowship Impact Springboard virtual conference, Kataly Foundation CEO, Nwamaka Agbo, and The Connective Director, Rangimarie Price, were invited to discuss their much-needed work in disrupting traditional, colonial models of economic investment.
This public session, was organised by EHF Fellows Laina Raveendran Greene (CEO of Angels of Impact) and Teresa Tepania-Ashton (CEO of Māori Women’s Development Inc.), whose work focuses on how wāhine-led, community-based social enterprises are promising agents of change, and how new models and tool kits for restoration capital are badly needed to assist them in their endeavours.
As the founder of Restorative Economics, Nwamaka opened the session by stressing the critical importance of shifting from the historical investment profit maximisation paradigm of market-driven supply and demand to one led by relationships, culture, tradition, well-being, spiritual practices and whānau. This imperative was echoed by Rangimarie in her discussion of tikanga-led economic practice driven by the understanding that “everything is interrelated; nothing exists of itself.” What emerged was a rich discussion which quickly highlighted deep parallels between Nwamaka’s work in the US and Rangimarie’s work in Aotearoa.
Restorative economics, at its essence, “centres on healing and restoration of vulnerable communities who have been marginalised and oppressed by a polluting and extractive economy by investing in strategies that create shared prosperity and self-determination for a just transition to the next economy,” Nwamaka says. This emerging economic system “prioritises socio-economic and political resources for communities most impacted by structural economic disinvestment and political disenfranchisement, resulting in systemic oppression.”
Nwamaka reminds us that the etymology of the word ‘economy’, dates back to its Greek definition: ‘the management of home’. “There’s an opportunity for us to start to have a different world view; a different lens under which we come to understand ‘economy’. And one in which we’re looking at the meaning of the world in terms of our collective home. How do we actually think about moving resources in a way that lends itself to the management of our collective home, creating a safe and sacred space for all people?”
Kataly’s work sits in this space of shared prosperity and community wealth, she says, and focuses on moving resources to ensure that those who are most directly impacted by investments are also the decision-makers. “This is how we start to manage the power and privilege that investors can often wield over vulnerable communities that do need that deep investment but are not invited to the table to be a part of making the shared decisions about what that investment is, what it looks like and how that community is being resourced.”
Through a focus on the intersection of inclusion, governing for the whole, regeneration – not just of planet and environment, but also of relationships – and shared prosperity, one can start to imagine a shift toward a restorative economic system with practices which benefit the many, instead of the few. “When we start to bring together these various values in practice, we have an opportunity to figure out how we can create an economy or a transition point in which we start to move out of an economy of extraction and exploitation towards something that’s more rooted in shared prosperity and generosity,” says Nwamaka. “That’s where the heart of my work sits.”
Rangimarie’s work mirrors many of these same priorities through the indigenous perspective of Māori values. “Inherently, what we believe as Māori people is that everything we are and everything we have been given is divinely inspired. That imposes on us sacred obligations, with manaakitanga being our sacred obligation to deeply care for people and kaitiakitanga being our sacred obligation to care for the life-supporting capacity of the planet, in perpetuity.
“If we’re going to define what success looks like, we need to be looking at it through a tikanga lens. The model that’s in use currently says we have to make money. And then, with whatever we have left over after we make money, we’ll do good. From a tikanga point of view, tikanga is purpose and well-being driven, not profit driven. It focuses on upholding the well-being of people and the planet as being the determinants of how you would use capital and your best thinking to achieve those ends.”
A study of the Māori economy in 2013 confirmed that the Taitokerau Māori economy is a developing economy within a developed economy, Rangimarie says. “This means we need to have a policy environment which is tailored to both parts, but the statistics demonstrated that this was not the case by highlighting the accumulation of a number of things: poor investment decisions, underinvestment, disinvestment, no investment and divestment across the spectrum of all of those institutions which are purportedly investing into Māori economic well-being.”
The findings of the study resulted in the creation of an investment platform focused on transforming Taitokerau (Aotearoa’s Northland) for good. “We found that investment that had been coming into the region was going to fairly traditional projects which might have some social or environmental return but which were primarily reliant on grants and donations, meaning that the impact they could offer was often limited. Our focus was on tikanga-led, system-level projects. This involves an understanding of the ecosystem and all the inter-dependencies, enabling us to invest across a whole spectrum of projects and create a systems-level and regenerative return.” One of the focuses for Taitokerau has been intergenerational, self-sustaining impact which puts power back into the communities which have historically been exploited and extracted from.
Both speakers spoke to this critical importance of redistributing power through restorative capital by upending the capitalist mindset of scarcity and taking investors to task about upholding their stated values. “We need to challenge organisations to look at how their investments do or do not align with their values and remind them that values are not just important during the good times,” Nwamaka says. Rangimarie adds, “I think we’re on a slow journey toward more decision-making that’s reflective of who we are and the values that work well with us as a collective people.”
Both speakers challenge potential investors to shift their thinking on the purpose and desired outcomes of their investment capital. “People want to see a perfect success story before they’ll take a leap,” Nwamaka says. “It is my job to remind them that this is not an academic study and to challenge them to consider whether there is a portion of their investment that they could use to explore and experiment with a community or an individual.”
Teresa and Laina closed the session with some reflections on indigenous wisdom in the field of economics and the environment, with Laina challenging the participants to not just be inspired by indigenous wisdom, but amplify and elevate indigenous leaders to share their vast cultural and intellectual resources for the betterment of all humanity. “We need to recognise our own individual mana,” Teresa added. “We are all born with it and we can all bring it to the table to establish equilibrium.”
Laina also reminded us that “the system is clearly not broken. It is rigged to benefit the few at the expense of people and the planet. Until we recognize that we cannot use the same system that created the problems to solve them as well, we will never make the necessary systems change.”
The provocations discussed in this session deeply challenge our dominant economic system and the many invisible and visible inequalities in our global society. What must follow is a huge collective journey to create systems change in our economy step by step, project by project, deal by deal and conversation by conversation.
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You can watch the recording of this session here. To learn more about this work and growing movement, these links provide good starting points:
Session at SVC NEXT Economy Live discussion on Restorative Investing
Session at SVC NEXT Economy Live on how to explore the funding gap, processes and terms that help promote racial equity and empower communities.
Session at Food Funded Conference on Why investing in justice, equity, diversity and inclusion is crucial: How entreprises and investors can move capital in a more equitable way.