Members from ICTD’s Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI) will participate in a number of sessions and host a panel discussion at the World Bank’s Land Conference, scheduled for May 13 to 17, 2024, in Washington DC. The theme for this year’ conference is “Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action.”

In-person registration has closed, but you can still register to attend virtually. To watch the live stream of LoGRI’s session at the World Bank Land Conference and for the latest information, please visit the World Bank Conference website.

LoGRI’s experts, along with experts from partner institutions, will present at the following sessions. All session times are listed in Eastern Standard Time (EST). Please note that room locations are subject to change (for in-person attendees).

Panel Discussion

Leveraging Property Taxation to Strengthen Land Management and Sustainability – New Models to Accelerate Reform Progress

Thursday, May 16, 2024, 11:15 – 13:00. Location: MC 4-800

(in-person & virtual)

This panel explores the significant role of property tax reform in enhancing urban resilience and land management. Featuring insights from LoGRI, the discussion will highlight successful reform strategies for linking property tax reform, investment in urban climate resilience and efforts to strengthen land management in lower income countries. In doing so, the panel seeks to contribute to the emergence and spread of reform strategies that maximize potential benefits, while seeking to learn from the missed opportunities of past reform programmes.

Speakers:

  • Dr. Wilson Prichard, Executive Director, ICTD, Chair, LoGRI & Associate Professor, University of Toronto (Chair)
  • Rosetta Wilson, Independent Consultant & Program Lead FCDO-funded Property Tax Reform Projects
  • Camille Barras, Policy Lead, LoGRI
  • Frank Pichel, Land Information Specialist, PLACE
  • Dr. Colette Nyirakamana, Research Lead, LoGRI and Senior Research Associate, University of Toronto

 

Research Presentation Session

Using Property Taxation as the Basis for a Social Contract

Thursday, May 16, 2024, 8:00am – 10:00am. Location: MC 8-100

(in-person only)

Building comprehensive property tax systems in lower-income countries: ‘cadaster-first’ versus ‘property tax-first’ approaches to property tax reform

Dr. Wilson Prichard, Executive Director, ICTD, Chair, LoGRI & Associate Professor, University of Toronto and Dr. Colette Nyirakama, Research Lead, LoGRI and Senior Research Associate, University of Toronto

Strengthening the fiscal contract by linking property tax reform and participatory budgeting in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Kevin Grieco, Postdoctoral Fellow, LoGRI.

The challenges of taxing properties on customary land

Sripriya Iyengar Srivatsa, Doctoral Fellow, LoGRI.

Should local and traditional authorities collaborate in raising property tax? A study of property owner preferences in Zambia

Nicolas Orgeira Pillai, Doctoral Fellow, LoGRI.

Session: Revolutionizing Land Administration: A Debate on Cadaster-first Versus Fit-for-Purpose and Property Tax-first Approaches to Achieve Tenure Security

Dr. Wilson Prichard will also be speaking at this session which is scheduled for 14 May 2024 from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm, at MC 4-800, and will be accessible both in-person and virtually.

Event Details
Past Event
Date
13 May 2024 - 17 May 2024
Time
-

Wilson Prichard

Wilson Prichard is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Chair of the Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI) and former Executive Officer of the International Centre for Tax and Development (2020-2024). His research focuses on the relationship between taxation and citizen demands for improved governance in sub-Saharan Africa.

Colette Nyirakamana

Dr Colette Nyirakamana is Research Lead for the LoGRI program, and Senior Research Associate at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on local finances, in particular the building of fiscal autonomy in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) subnational governments. She studies the reasons why, despite the significant potential of financial resources, SSA cities fail to raise enough revenue. Colette’s research draws on institutional and political economy theories to show how institutional rules and incentives and local political dynamics create favourable and unfavourable conditions for effective revenue mobilisation. Her research highlights how weak fiscal autonomy limits the capacity of cities to finance public services valued by citizens. She completed her doctoral degree in Comparative Public Policy at McMaster University in Canada.

Nicolas Orgeira Pillai

Nicolas Orgeira is a a Doctoral Fellow with the Local Government Initiative (LoGRI), an initiative of ICTD based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

Sripriya Iyengar Srivatsa

Sripriya Iyengar Srivatsa is a Research Associate at ICTD working on the Gender and Tax project with a focus on tax compliance. Prior to this, she was an Overseas Development Institute Fellow at the Ministry of Finance in Sierra Leone where her work has covered data-for-development, research capacity building initiatives, and studying the labour market implications of household care-burden in Sierra Leone. She is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge where her doctoral research agenda is closely tied to ICTD’s interests in the political economy of taxation and sub-national revenues. She obtained her Master's Degree in Political Economy from SOAS, University of London, and previously worked as a legislative researcher in the Indian Parliament.

Camille Barras

Camille Barras is the Policy Lead for the Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI). Her areas of work and interest encompass public governance and administration, subnational governance, intergovernmental relations and state-society relations – and their connection with taxation. She is also interested in questions related to the effectiveness and evolution of international development as a field, in evidence generation and uptake as well as in research methods (quantitative, mixed, evaluation). She completed, in 2023, a PhD at the University of Cambridge, investigating the effects of decentralization on political attitudes and behaviours, and holds academic qualifications in political science, public policy and law. Previously, she worked during seven years at the intersection of practice and research, mainly in the international development sector across a variety of organizations and projects in West/North Africa, South/East Asia and Europe. Among others, she worked for a local governance project at UNDP, was a project manager for impact evaluations at the Center for Evaluation and Development and consulted for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.