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New guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and standards from the Treasury Department highlight the importance of advocacy. The OMB recently issued new best practices, “Flexibilities and Best Practices for Implementing the Office of Management and Budget’s Statistical Policy Directive Number 15,” which outline how all federal agencies can collect more detailed demographic data. Importantly, the OMB demonstrated how agencies can collect data on the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) community using a separate ancestry question. MENA inclusion is a key goal for NNAAC’s advocacy efforts.
“Middle Eastern and North African community members have been misrecognized and under-resourced by the federal government for as long as the U.S. has collected demographic data on individuals’ race and ethnicity,” said Maha Freij, president and CEO, ACCESS. “As a result, Arab and MENA Americans have been excluded from most federal programs that encourage and support community development. The new standards move us one step closer to getting the recognition and support our communities deserve.”
Earlier this year, the Treasury Department demonstrated how this would work in practice, when they added a MENA ancestry question as part of the reporting requirements for partners under their State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI). Collecting MENA data along with respondents’ self-certification as a “socially economically disadvantaged individual” (SEDI) makes it more likely that MENA communities can access federal assistance earmarked for under-resourced communities.
To date, MENA Americans have been miscategorized as “white.” Properly categorizing MENA as a distinct community will recognize the robustness of our community and improve access to necessary resources.
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