Civic Academy
Economic Development 101
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Jobs, businesses, leases, capital, workforce, housing, and economic sovereignty.
Economic development is not one thing
It includes jobs, businesses, capital, infrastructure, housing, workforce development, entrepreneurship, and ownership.
Candidates should be asked what they mean by economic development.
Key obstacles
Business site leases.
Access to capital.
Infrastructure: roads, water, power, broadband.
Workforce mismatch.
Housing shortages that prevent recruitment and retention.
Twin Arrows / Change Labs questions
What industry should create the next 10,000 jobs? What obstacle would you remove first? Is the problem lack of programs or lack of awareness? What does economic sovereignty mean in practical terms?One debate underneath many answers
Listen across the interviews and you’ll hear an unresolved tension: how open should the Nation’s economy be to outside businesses, workers, and investment? Some candidates emphasize protecting Navajo priority — the Navajo Business Opportunity Act (NBOA), Navajo hiring preference, keeping contracts and profits home. Others emphasize what the Nation still needs from outside: capital, specialized professionals, companies that bring jobs. Most hold some of both. Neither instinct is wrong — they’re answering different fears: being extracted from, and being left behind.
There’s a second layer worth asking about, because several threads in the interviews point to it: whether the Nation’s own workplace climate decides the question before policy does. When hiring is influenced by politics, when wrongful-termination complaints pile up at Office of Navajo Labor Relations (ONLR), when qualified people — Navajo or not — watch how the last professional was treated, recruitment and retention suffer no matter what the recruitment plan says. Doctors, engineers, administrators, and returning Navajo graduates all read the same signals. A useful question for any candidate: “What would you change so that a skilled person — from here or elsewhere — would want to come, and want to stay?”
Related lessons: Navajo Preference in Employment Act (NPEA) & Workplace Culture, ONLR 101, Hiring & High-Trust Positions, The NBOA.
Goes with: NBOA 101 · The Enterprises 101
Quick check
Check your understanding — private, no grades
The lesson's first point about economic development is that it…
Right — jobs, businesses, capital, leases, workforce, housing — ask candidates what THEY mean by it.
Which of these is named as a key obstacle?
Yes — leases, capital, infrastructure, workforce mismatch, and housing shortages.
Under a business-preference law, a “front company” is…
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