capable governing institutions

Thumbnail

State of Indian Nations 2023 Address (SOIN23)

Each year, the President of the National Congress of American Indians presents the State of Indian Nations address to members of Congress, government officials, tribal leaders and citizens, and the American public. Typically delivered during the week that the President of the United States delivers…

Thumbnail

Jason Mika: Maori Governance and Maori Economy

Jason is a Fulbright scholar in the US from August 2019 to January 2020 visiting the Native Nations Institute (Aug-Oct) at the University of Arizona and the Woods Institute for Environmental Policy at Stanford University (Oct-Jan). Jason is an Indigenous entrepreneurship researcher from Massey…

Image
Bad With Money Podcast: COVID Impact on Tribal Lands

Bad with Money Podcast: COVID's Economic Devastation on Tribal Lands

Gaby Dunn speaks with Karen R. Diver (Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa), Director of Business Development for the Native American Advancement Initiatives at the Native Nations Institute and appointee of President Obama as the Special Assistant to the President for Native American Affairs…

Thumbnail

Webinar: Rebuilding Native Nations and Strategies for Governance and Development

The Indigenous Governance Program (IGP) at the University of Arizona has long been at the vanguard of delivering Indigenous Governance Education. To do our part at this critical time, IGP was pleased to offer our January in Tucson Courses in May event free of charge, live streamed via Zoom to…

Thumbnail

Governor Stephen Roe Lewis Distinguished Tribal Leader Lecture

Governor Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community visited the University of Arizona to speak at January in Tucson: Distinguished Tribal Leader Lecture sponsored by the Native Nations Institute and held at the Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy program at James E. Rogers College of Law…

Thumbnail

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez: Native Nation Building for the Navajo Nation

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez visited the University of Arizona and gave his views on making governance work for people in he Navajo Nation.  In this brief interview with NNI the President offered his thoughts on Native Nation Building and the way it is utilized for the…

Thumbnail

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez Distinguished Tribal Leaders Lecture

The Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program hosted the Distinguished Tribal Leaders Lecture at the University of Arizona James E Rogers College of Law featuring the recently elected Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez. The president gave his views on working for a Native Nation and making…

Thumbnail

Herminia Frias: Native Women in Governance

Herminia “Minnie” Frias, Councilwoman, Pascua Yaqui Tribal Council. Councilwoman Frias shares her journey of being a Native woman leader, drawing from her experience in serving on her Nation’s Tribal Council both as a Chairwoman, and as a Council Member. Frias was the youngest person and first…

Thumbnail or cover image
Yavapai-Apache Nation Constitution

Yavapai-Apache Nation Constitution

Location: Arizona Population: 2300 Date of Constitution: 1936, as amended 1947

Thumbnail

Kenneth Hall: Rising to the challenge of self-governance

Councilman Kenneth Hall was elected to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation tribal business council in 2012 and represents the largest population in the north segment. Councilman Hall is Hidatsa, of the Knife Clan, and great-grandson of Chief Dragswolf, the last chief of the Hidatsa people. Hall…

Thumbnail or cover image
Closing the Gap: A North American Perspective

Closing the Gap: A North American Perspective

This series of lectures is about “closing the gaps”–the socioeconomic and other gaps between Indigenous and mainstream populations in Australia. You might well wonder what a Yank academic is doing leading off such a series. I have to admit that I’ve wondered that myself. And I find myself somewhat…

Thumbnail or cover image
Indigenous Land Management in the United States: Context, Cases, Lessons

Indigenous Land Management in the United States: Context, Cases, Lessons

The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) is seeking ways to support First Nations’ economic development. Among its concerns are the status and management of First Nations’ lands. The Indian Act, bureaucratic processes, the capacities of First Nations themselves, and other factors currently limit the…

Thumbnail or cover image
Trust Resource Management (Salish and Kootenai)

Trust Resource Management (Salish and Kootenai)

For more than three decades, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) have been building capable governing institutions and taking over management of resources and programs previously managed by outsiders. Recognizing that self-management both allows the tribal government to determine its…

Thumbnail or cover image
Transcending Borders in Tribal Nation-Building

Transcending Borders in Tribal Nation-Building

Dr. Stephen Cornell addressed the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, House of Commons, in Ottawa, Canada. The following is the excerpted transcript from his address, which, among other things, discusses what really does and should matter to Indigenous peoples--…

Thumbnail

Patricia Riggs: The Role of Citizen Engagement in Nation Building: The Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Story

Patricia Riggs, Director of Economic Development for Ysleta del Sur Pueblo (YDSP), discusses how YDSP has spent the past decade developing and fine-tuning its comprehensive approach to engaging its citizens in order to identify and then achieve its nation-building priorities. This video resource is…

Thumbnail

Rebuilding the Tigua Nation

The Tigua Indians of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo in Ysleta, Texas produced this 16-minute film in 2013 to demonstrate how a Native American tribe can work hard with business skills and tribal customs to shape a prosperous future through education for all levels of the Tigua Nation.

Thumbnail

Eva Petoskey: Empowering Good Leadership Through Capable Governance: What My Leadership Experience Taught Me

Eva Petoskey, citizen and former council member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTB), discusses her experiences as an elected leader during a pivotal time in GTB's history. She also stress the importance of Native nations developing capable institutions of self-governance…

Thumbnail

NNI Indigenous Leadership Fellow: John Petoskey (Part 1)

In the first of two interviews conducted in conjunction with his tenure as NNI Indigenous Leadership Fellow, John Petoskey, citizen and long-time General Counsel of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTB), discusses how GTB has worked and continues to work to build and maintain…

Thumbnail

Eldena Bear Don't Walk: So What's So Important about Tribal Courts?

Eldena Bear Don't Walk, Chief Justice of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, discusses some of the things that tribal justice systems need to have in place in order to be effective, and how important it is for Native nation governments and citizens to respect and support the decisions…

Thumbnail

Rae Nell Vaughn: So What's So Important About Tribal Courts?

Rae Nell Vaughn, former Chief Justice of the Mississippi Choctaw Supreme Court, discusses how justice systems are critical to Native nations' exercise of sovereignty, and sets out some key things that those systems need to have in place in order to administer justice fairly and effectively on…