The International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD) is proud to announce that two of its early-career researchers, Adrienne Lees and Sripriya Srivatsa, have successfully submitted their PhD theses. Their achievements reflect not only years of dedication and rigorous scholarship, but also ICTD’s ongoing commitment to supporting the next generation of researchers working on taxation from low- and lower-middle-income countries.
Giulia Masagni, ICTD’s Executive Director, who has worked closely with both Adrienne and Sripriya as a mentor and PhD supervisor, highlights the significance of their achievements:
“Watching Adrienne and Priya grow from dedicated researchers into experts in their own right has been a privilege. Their work is a testament to why we invest in early career researchers: when we support brilliant people from and working in low-income contexts, we don’t just gain new evidence; we also support diverse voices who will help shape more equitable and effective tax systems for the future.”
Both Adrienne and Sripriya combined their doctoral research with active roles at ICTD, contributing to live research programmes while developing independent academic work rooted in real policy challenges. Their journeys highlight the value of sustained mentorship, collaborative research, and long-term investment in research capacity.
Sripriya Srivatsa: Inclusive tax systems at the margins in Eswatini, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Zambia
Sripriya Srivatsa, a policy economist from India, was an ODI Fellow at the Ministry of Finance in Sierra Leone, where she studied how household care responsibilities affect participation in the labour market. This experience sparked her interest in the fiscal experiences of those at the margins, leading her to use her doctoral studies to investigate the relationship between tax systems and these communities.
Her thesis titled “Pushing the Envelope: Inclusive Tax Systems at the Margins,” explored how taxation acts as a political encounter for marginalised groups, specifically women entrepreneurs and residents of informal settlements and customary land. Supported by an ICTD/LoGRI PhD Studentship, Sripriya’s research took her across six African countries — Eswatini, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Zambia.
Her research revealed that while men and women appear to show similar levels of compliance, women often have to navigate the system under significant constraints, including patriarchal norms and limited access to information. This directly challenges the idea of a uniform tax experience. Furthermore, she found that in informal and customary areas, simple light-touch interventions are ineffective at changing tax attitudes. Property tax reform becomes politically feasible only when the state enters into substantive negotiations with traditional leaders through clear revenue-sharing agreements and formally negotiated roles.
Reflecting on these findings, Sripriya notes: “I hope that this thesis contributes to the literature while making a broader argument: that tax systems which overlook gendered constraints and institutional fragmentation are not only inequitable, but also fiscally self-defeating.”
Previously ICTD’s focal point on gender and tax, Sripriya now works for the International Growth Centre’s ‘Cities that Work’ initiative, where she continues to apply her expertise to municipal finance and gender issues.
Watch Sripriya’s interview on the importance of mainstreaming gender in public policy:
Adrienne Lees: Tackling tax compliance challenges in Uganda
Adrienne Lees, an economist from South Africa, first joined ICTD as a Research Officer in 2020, having previously worked as an ODI Fellow in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Uganda. She began her ICTD-funded PhD in 2021, focusing her doctoral research on the tax compliance challenges facing Uganda.
Her work provides critical evidence on the compliance costs for small and medium-sized firms which she found can often exceed the actual tax liabilities for smaller businesses. Adrienne’s research also evaluated the impact of digitalising the VAT paper trail, finding that while electronic invoicing can curb certain types of evasion, it is not a complete substitute for traditional enforcement capacity.
Adrienne says: “Doing my PhD alongside my work at ICTD meant I was constantly learning, not just about methods, but about how research interacts with policy. The collaborative environment and mentorship pushed me to think carefully about impact, not just outputs.”
Having successfully completed her oral examination in January, Adrienne is embarking on a well-deserved sabbatical. After this period, she will return to ICTD to resume her work, including projects in Eswatini and a collaboration with the Bank of Uganda to evaluate the taxation of mobile money.
Watch Adrienne’s interview on the cost of tax compliance for Ugandan firms:
ICTD’s commitment to nurturing the next generation of researchers from lower-income countries
For ICTD, supporting these researchers is about more than just funding; it is about providing the mentorship and networks necessary to bridge the gap between academia and policy, and investing in the local expertise required to lead sustainable tax research and reform across the global South. A further five PhD candidates from low-income countries are currently completing their own doctoral research at the Centre, looking at issues such as revenue mobilisation and compliance with subnational tax, the role of information and communication technologies in improving tax administration, and citizens’ perspectives of the social contract and how this influences their tax morale.
As well as supporting PhD candidates, ICTD also annually delivers a free Research on Tax and Development course and provides free online learning tools through its Learning Portal.
Interested in pursuing PhD studies? Adrienne and Sripriya share their advice in this blog.
Find out more about Adrienne’s work on tax compliance in Uganda:
- The Panopticon taxman: How digital surveillance is impacting tax compliance in Uganda
- Uganda’s tax system is a drain on small businesses: how to set them free
- Tackling the hidden costs of taxation: Can digitalisation help?
