ICTD-funded research on South Sudan featured in The Conversation Africa
Matthew Benson-Strohmayer penned a piece for The Conversation Africa, titled ‘South Sudan at 15: how the political elite have found a way to profit from peace as well as from war‘, that drew on his ICTD co-funded research that expored fiscal capacity in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. The article was then syndicated at least four times across local and regional outlets, including AllAfrica and PeaceRep.
ICTD work on mobile money markets cited in regional news agency
Ecofin Agency, a news outlet covering specialised topics — including finance and emerging sectors — across the African continent, drew on ICTD research around domestic revenue and digital taxation related to mobile money, in a news report on Guinea’s digital tax strategy.
View ICTD’s work around digital taxation here.
Mick Moore’s brief on Sri Lanka’s revenue department makes headlines in local outlet
Sri Lankan business paper DailyFT featured a brief published by Arutha Research and authored by ICTD’s Mick Moore on structural challenges the Inland Revenue Department needs to address to avoid them undermining the sustainability of improvements in tax administration.
ICTD’s new partnership with Zambia Revenue Authority garners media attention
The signing of ICTD’s new memorandum of understanding with the Zambia Revenue Authority — a partnership aimed at strengthening evidence-based tax administration through research, digital innovation, and the use of advanced technologies, including AI — gained coverage among local media, including the Zambia Monitor and TechAfrica News.
Africa Business cites ICTD research on international tax standards
A feature piece by economist Léonce Ndikumana for Africa Business cited ICTD’s recent research on comparative perspectives on international tax standards. The article partly read:
“How we design our tax systems is ultimately a policy choice, and inequality need not be its outcome. Analysts at the International Centre for Tax and Development concluded that two decades of OECD-designed standards have delivered benefits that are uneven, slow, and expensive…”
Visit this webpage to read the full research.
Vanessa van den Boogaard joins TaxCast Norway to talk informal sector taxation
ICTD Research Fellow Vanessa van den Boogaard was featured in Tax Justice Network Norway’s podcast, TaxCast, to discuss whether the informal sector should be considered a “tax goldmine”. Van den Boogaard, who co-leads the Centre’s research programme on tax and informality, talked about why measures to tax the informal secotr often fail and where it actuall pays to direct these efforts instead. Listen to the episode here.
Local outlet cites ICTD research on tax awareness, perceptions in contemporary Kenya
In an article about common tax reliefs available to Kenyans, K24 Digital cited 2024 ICTD research (Research in Brief 144) on tax awareness and fiscal workarounds in the country.
Devex quotes Giovanni Occhiali on improving African tax systems
ICTD Research Fellow Giovanni Occhiali was cited in a Devex article on what it takes to raise domestic revenue more effectively across African countries, in the context of declining aid.
It reads in part: “Giovanni Occhiali … has spent years studying how these gaps play out in practice. African systems, he tells [the reporter], are ‘working nowhere near as progressively as they should’ — and the revenue left on the table from unenforced laws against high earners dwarfs losses in almost any other area.”
Mick Moore pens op-ed for The Examiner on Sri Lanka’s IRD
ICTD Research Fellow Mick Moore published an op-ed for Sri Lanka’s The Examiner on recent improvements in how the Inland Revenue Department does its work.
He said in part: “Over the last two years, the department, step by step, is finding its mojo. The government has made tax reform a priority. The president’s office has created a bureau for revenue administration reform and modernisation, and the Treasury, a tax policy analysis unit. These efforts are beginning to bear fruit.”
Giulia Masacagni pens op-ed for Devex on taxing smarter in ‘post-aid era’
ICTD Executive Director Giulia Mascagni published an opinion piece on Devex on how ‘taxing smarter is the key to thriving in the post-aid era of development’.
She wrote: “2026 is the year to focus on solutions for the post-aid era, and to recognise that success hinges on lower-income countries’ ability to dramatically raise more public revenue, and on the partnerships they can count on as they do so.”
Frederik Heitmüller shares insights on UN Tax Convention negotiations with Tax Notes
ICTD Associate Postdoctoral Fellow Frederik Heitmüller was interviewed by Tax Notes on the progress of the negotiations for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (see our work on the Framework Convention here).
Reflecting on the last round of discussions in Nairobi, Heitmüller told Tax Notes that “countries are still debating how the framework convention will work in practice, how binding the agreement will be, and how it will relate to the protocols, which overlap with some aspects of the convention.”
Read the full article here.
Mick Moore’s piece on Sri Lanka’s property tax system carried by local media
ICTD Research Fellow Mick Moore’s op-ed on Sri Lanka’s property tax system, which, he argues, is largely underperforming, was published in two local media outlets (see here and here).
“[P]roperty taxes are one of the most equitable ways of raising government revenue. People with more income and wealth live in larger houses and own more property,” he said.
“Let us tax them in proportion to the value of their properties, but exempt the poorest half of the population, whose houses anyway have such low values that their property tax assessments are not worth collecting,” Moore added.