IDS researchers are speaking about tax and gender equality and tax for better governance, at the first global conference of the Platform for Collaboration on Tax on Taxation and the Sustainable Development Goals, at the UN headquarters in New York.
The researchers are members of the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD), an IDS-based network improving the quality of tax policy and administration in sub-Saharan Africa through collaborative, policy-oriented research.
Dr Jalia Kangave, who leads the ICTD’s research programme on gender and tax, will be a panellist in the session “Smarter Taxation for Better Gender Equality.” She is calling on the Platform for Collaboration on Tax to widen its definition of taxation, to take into account the greater tax burden placed on women in Africa that comes from local user fees and informal taxes. See her blog Tax justice for women’s rights: What are the real issues in developing countries?
Dr Wilson Prichard, ICTD Research Director, will chair the session titled “DRM and State Building: Taxation for Better Governance“. Dr Prichard has conducted extensive research on this topic, authoring the book Taxation, Responsiveness and Accountability in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has also been instrumental in shaping the World Bank’s new Global Tax Program, as the academic lead for its upcoming flagship research report.
Dr Prichard is an expert on the political economy aspects of taxation, as well as the administrative challenges faced by developing countries in mobilising domestic resources. Recently, he co-authored a paper titled “How can governments of low-income countries collect more tax revenue?”, which outlines eight areas of “dangling fruit” from which developing countries could gather significant additional revenue to help finance the sustainable development goals.
Key resources
- ICTD Summary Brief 6: Tax and Gender in Developing Countries: What are the Issues?
- ICTD Summary Brief 4: What Have We Learned About Taxation, Statebuilding and Accountability?