Three ways economic data will strengthen Indian Country over the next decade

Changes in seasons invite us to reflect on major milestones and our hopes for the future. In Salish culture, this isn’t just an individual activity, but also one that takes place within family and across community. Through storytelling, my relatives reflect on where we’ve been as a people and where we’re heading. We plan for our future in ways that are shaped by our memories.

This winter, in the early weeks of the new year, I also feel that sense of communal reflection in my professional life. In 2025, the Center for Indian Country Development (CICD) marked its first decade of economic research and data work, culminating in a two-day event featuring tribal leader reflections on the role of self-determination in shaping modern Native economies and today’s Indian Country data renaissance. Last year also marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA), a federal law that prioritizes tribal self-governance and economic self-determination.

What the past 50 years in Indian Country make evident, and what our research at CICD underscores, is that when tribes are in the driver’s seat and are using data in good ways, our futures look much brighter. In fact, socioeconomic data from recent decades—including data showing increasing per capita income on reservations and declining unemployment—demonstrate that tribal self-determination is, indeed, effective.

In the spirit of the new season—and with an eye set on the horizon—I offer three areas of data advancement that I foresee may strengthen tribal economic self-determination in Indian Country over the next decade.

Telling Indian Country’s stories with tribal and intertribal data

Many tribal governments are already conducting their own tribal censuses. By deploying their own surveys, tribes gather exactly the data they need to understand changes in their communities and design housing projects, job training opportunities, cultural programs, and other services consistent with tribal values.

At the same time, we’re seeing increasing examples of intertribal data collaboration—tribes coming together to build broader datasets that form a better understanding of Indian Country from within Indian Country. One example of this is tribes working together to produce state-level tribal economic impact and contribution reports—reports that require trust and data sharing among participating tribes. Another strong example is the Survey of Native Nations, which is a collaboration between CICD and tribal governments across the United States to improve the public finance data available to Indian Country. National and regional Native organizations are playing important roles in facilitating these data collaborations and advancing data-informed perspectives on tribal treasuries and economies.

As technology brings new data-collection and analysis efficiencies, I hope to see tribal censuses become a real possibility for every tribe. This expansion of tribally collected data will facilitate new and expanded intertribal datasets that position Indian Country to tell our collective economic stories in timely ways.

Developing data lakes accessible to decision-makers across tribal government

Even though many tribal nations face very real capacity constraints that challenge their ability to put time and resources into new data systems, we’re hearing examples of tribal governments investing in research staff and data departments as a core function of tribal government. Through these centralized data departments, tribal governments are leveraging their tribal census data to equip administrators across a variety of government functions with information that can drive their decision-making.

We should expect to see data infrastructure become increasingly accessible to tribal governments as technology continues to advance. Over the next decade, I expect that we’ll see more tribes developing “data lakes”—repositories where data are harmonized and made available to administrators across a variety of tribal government functions. As we’re already seeing, providing administrators with appropriate access to data on their citizens can support evidence-based decision-making across a wide range of government services and programming.

Shaping artificial intelligence applications around data sovereignty

It’s hard to look into the future without also wondering how tribes will interact with artificial intelligence (AI). Tribes are innovative and entrepreneurial and will continue to find ways to navigate AI that are consistent with tribal values. Over the next decade, I envision tribal governments exploring opportunities to use AI to analyze data and deploy insights with increasing efficiency.

At the same time, the ever-changing data landscape will raise new questions for tribal governments in the safeguarding of their data. Given Indian Country’s historical experiences with our data being used in ways that harmed our communities, it will be vital for tribes to lead the way in shaping AI applications in alignment with data-sovereignty principles. Tribes are already developing new data-use procedures. In the coming years I expect to see these guidelines increasingly wrestle with questions around safe and appropriate use of AI.

Imagining a prosperous economic future fueled by data

What might these data advancements mean for Indian Country’s economic future? My best hope is that high-quality data will empower us to do what we’ve always done as Native communities: serve our citizens, steward our resources, innovate our economies, and not just tell our stories but own them. Each distinctive Native community will decide what that means, with high-quality data front and center in its decision-making. As the ISDEAA underscored 50 years ago, and speakers at CICD’s tenth-anniversary commemoration and data summit recently reinforced, this future is anchored to tribal self-determination.

N̓em heł wíčtmn (Until next time),

Casey Lozar