The International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD) has secured US$1 million from Founders Pledge to fund a new three-year programme of collaborative research to strengthen tax administration in lower-income countries, starting 2027.
The funding comes at a time of mounting fiscal pressure for many lower-income countries. Rising debt burdens, reductions in development assistance, and growing demands for investment in public services have increased the importance of generating domestic revenue. Tax-to-GDP ratios in these countries remain well below those of wealthier economies but closing that gap is not simply a matter of collecting more. Badly designed reforms can be expensive to administer, fail to raise meaningful revenue, and erode trust between citizens and the state. (Read The Tax Era of Development: Taxing Smarter for Equity, Growth, and Resilience)
ICTD’s research has already shaped reform in this space. For instance, in Rwanda, its work underpinned the removal of more than 117,000 dormant “nil-filer” accounts, freeing up administrative capacity and cutting compliance costs for small businesses without reducing revenue. In Ghana, ICTD research found that a simplified tax regime for small firms was costing roughly nine times more to administer than it raised – a finding now informing more resource-efficient approaches. (Read more about ICTD’s impact over the past fifteen years in this report Taxing Smarter: Advancing Reform Through Research and Partnership)
The new programme builds on this, with ICTD working collaboratively with partners, including revenue authorities, to evaluate and improve tax administration reforms in a way that is both efficient and equitable. It combines research, policy engagement, and hands-on training to support both immediate reform decisions and longer-term research capacity within the authorities themselves.
Reflecting on the new funding, ICTD Research Director Max Gallien said:
“We are very excited about the opportunities for new collaborative research that this support makes possible. Founders Pledge’s focus on tangible impact while also aiming for systemic change fits in extremely well with ICTD’s approach.”
He added:
“We hope that the projects that emerge from this grant can continue to show that high-quality research, conducted in partnership and with a practical focus, can be a hugely powerful lever to boosting tax capacity in lower-income countries.”
The grant is part of Founders Pledge’s Catalytic Impact Fund, which backs opportunities for long-term systemic change. Announcing the investment as part of a broader push into Africa’s financial future beyond foreign aid, Founders Pledge pointed to ICTD’s “strong track record of translating research into impact.”
It added:
“Traditional government funders have been withdrawing from the field, making private funding counterfactually pivotal for launching this work. We project that this grant will produce at least one major administrative reform whose revenue gains repay the grant many times over, and research capacity within revenue authorities that outlasts every individual project”.
Photo: ICTD researchers visiting the data lab of the Zambia Revenue Authority, July 2026.