Community Wealth Building Report - It’s the Local Economy, Stupid!

A ground-up Community Wealth Building approach to target poverty: The Combined Power of the NI Independent Advice Network as an Anchor Institution.

Wednesday / 09 March 2022 12:39pm

Destitution and poverty in Northern Ireland are predicted to soar. Now more than ever as well as helping people mitigate poverty, we need to take a solution focused approach to preventing poverty. Community Wealth Building (CWB) is a commonsense approach to local economic development that ensures the wealth in a place is kept circulating and working for the community rather than leaking away. It came to prominence due to Preston’s significant outcomes from using the approach which has influenced numerous places including the Scottish and Welsh governments to adopt CWB. Here DfC has committed to the approach.

In the autumn of 2021, Advice NI commissioned Mary McManus to complete research which applied a Community Wealth Building lens to the combined economic impact of the NI Advice Network. We are delighted to share the findings of this research with you in the report, It’s the Local Economy, Stupid! A ground up Community Wealth Building approach to target poverty: The Combined Power of the NI Independent Advice Network as an Anchor Institution.

We hope you will find this report useful and informative. Given the current poverty crisis it is important that we all put our shoulder to the wheel not just by providing services but by using what economic power we have. We urge you to take on board the recommendations of this report and become accredited living wage employers joining the movement against low wages and to use your spend to support the local businesses.

If you would like to know more about Community Wealth Building or becoming a real living wage employer, then please get in touch.

You may also be interested to know that at Advice NI’s inspirational speaker event on Thursday 10 March, the Real Living Wage Foundation will talk about the real living wage and the benefits it can bring to both employees and employers. The real living wage (RLW) is a rate of pay based on the cost of living and provides a wage that meets the everyday needs of employees. If you’d like to find out more, please register at this Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inspirational-speaker-event-real-living-wage-tickets-247104244447

With best wishes

Image preview A close-up of a pen

Description automatically generated with low confidence