Growing Economies in Indian Country: Taking Stock of Progress and Partnerships- A Summary of Challenges, Recommendations, and Promising Efforts

Description

This report summarizes the many challenges to economic and business development in Native American communities that were expressed by the GEIC workshop attendees. The challenges fall into eight broad categories of issues that workshop participants indicated, to varying degrees, impede development on tribal lands. They include (1) insufficient access to capital; (2) capacity and capital constraints of small business resource providers; (3) insufficient workforce development, financial management training, and business education; (4) tribal governance constraints; (5) regulatory constraints on land held in trust and land designated as restricted use; (6) underdeveloped physical infrastructure; (7) insufficient research and data; and (8) a lack of regional collaboration. Upon review of several key studies done a number of years ago, such as the 2001 Native Lending Study published by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s CDFI Fund, it is promising that progress- in some cases, substantial progress-appears to have been made in many areas over the last decade or so. Nevertheless, as expressed by the GEIC workshop participants, many of these barriers and challenges persist today. This report also sets forth key recommendations, best practices, and promising efforts shared by the GEIC workshop participants and further informed by several notable studies and reports issued over the last several years that pertain to the specified challenges and barriers. The recommendations listed in this report are organized by stakeholder group, and are further categorized topically to address the identified challenges.