The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development

While looking at some information online the about B.C. Treaty negotiations, I came across a reference to The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Active since 1987, the project looks at American Indian communities across the U.S. , comparing them to reach evidence-based conclusions about what works in terms of social and economic well-being.

They have distilled the key research findings into the following catch phrases:

• Sovereignty matters
• Institutions matter
• Culture matters
• Leadership matters

More than twenty years of study by Harvard University professors, and I think the key finding is the one at the top of the list (and the one that is most boldly featured on the HPAID home page), “Sovereignty Matters“:

When Native nations make their own decisions about what development approaches to take, they consistently out-perform external decision makers on matters as diverse as governmental form, natural resource management, economic development, health care, and social service provision.

The project has found that although sovereignty in itself in not sufficient to ensure that native communities thrive culturally, socially, and economically, it is a necessary element. It must be present for everything else to happen.

Although I’m sure this lesson has been learned many times before, it provides strong support for those who insist on aboriginal control of education in aboriginal communities in Canada.