Current Project

The political, institutional and bargaining dynamics of property tax reform in Dakar, Thiès and Saint-Louis, Senegal

This project has two components. The first part aims to critically examine the efforts to identify and register properties and owners in Senegal and the factors underlining the willingness of the central government to invest in reform efforts when the revenue yields or overall benefits do not accrue to them. The second component will examine collaborative relationships in property tax administration between central government administrations and between the central government and local governments, with a particular focus on the variation in strategies between cities to engage with the central government.

Researchers

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.

Camille Barras

Camille Barras is the Policy Lead for the Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI). Her role focuses on generating, disseminating and translating into impact policy-relevant research on the effectiveness of property tax systems. Her main areas of work and interest encompass domestic resource mobilisation, intergovernmental relations, decentralisation, public administration and state-society relations. Prior to joining LoGRI, Camille worked for several years at the intersection of practice and research, supporting projects related to subnational governance and/or impact evaluation in Africa, Asia and Europe for UNDP, the Center for Evaluation and Development and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, among others. She completed a PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Marie Reine Mukazayire

Marie-Reine Mukazayire is pursuing her Masters of Global Affairs at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. Both academically and professionally, she is interested in learning about the ways sub-Saharan states can pursue financial and economic decolonization. She hopes to investigate and understand how these countries can develop state capacity to address socio-economic inequalities while promoting human-centric sustainable growth. Marie-Reine graduated with distinction from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor in International Relations and Development.
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