Feature
Indigenous Governance Summer Reading List
From a fictional thriller to a leading report on Native children, the HKS Project on Indigenous Governance and Development shares recommendations for must-reads this summer.
Policy Brief
Federal COVID‐19 Response Funding for Tribal Governments: Lessons from the CARES Act
Issues
The federal response to the COVID‐19 pandemic has played out in varied ways over the past several months. For Native nations, the CARES Act (i.e., the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) has been the most prominent component of this response to date. Title V of the Act earmarked $8 billion for tribes and was allocated in two rounds, with many disbursements taking place in May and June of this year.
This federal response has been critical for many tribes because of the lower socio‐economic starting points for their community members as compared to non‐Indians. Even before the pandemic, the average income of a reservation‐resident Native American household was barely half that of the average U.S. household. Low average incomes, chronically high unemployment rates, and dilapidated or non‐existent infrastructure are persistent challenges for tribal communities and tribal leaders. Layering extremely high coronavirus incidence rates (and the effective closure of many tribal nations’ entire economies2) on top of these already challenging circumstances presented tribal governments with a host of new concerns. In other words, at the same time tribal governments’ primary resources were decimated (i.e., the earnings of tribal governmental gaming and non‐gaming enterprises dried up), the demands on tribes increased. They needed these resources to fight the pandemic and to continue to meet the needs of tribal citizens.
More from this Program
Feature
Tribal Sovereignty in Focus Back-to-School Reading List
Back-to-school recommended reads from the Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development include books, articles, and podcasts that highlight Indigenous governance narratives.
Media Release
2023 All-Stars Awards in American Indian Tribal Governance Honors Nine Programs
Nine tribal governance programs have been selected by the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development’s Honoring Nations program as 2023 All-Stars from the family of 142 Honoring Nations awardees.
Feature
Indigenous Governance Summer Reading List
From a fictional thriller to a leading report on Native children, the HKS Project on Indigenous Governance and Development shares recommendations for must-reads this summer.
Feature
Tribal Sovereignty in Focus Back-to-School Reading List
Back-to-school recommended reads from the Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development include books, articles, and podcasts that highlight Indigenous governance narratives.
Media Release
2023 All-Stars Awards in American Indian Tribal Governance Honors Nine Programs
Nine tribal governance programs have been selected by the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development’s Honoring Nations program as 2023 All-Stars from the family of 142 Honoring Nations awardees.
