The Tax Era of Development: Taxing Smarter for Equity, Growth, and Resilience
Share
HomePublicationsThe Tax Era of Development: Taxing Smarter for Equ…
ICTD Policy Brief 18
At a time of substantial uncertainty for global development, three things are clear. First, aid is retreating substantially, and probably permanently. Second, lower-income countries’ debt servicing costs are spiralling, and their ability to take on new debt is constrained at the same time as principal sums are coming due. Third, the resources needed to finance development investments and core public services, including adaptations to the climate catastrophe, are continuously increasing. The consequence of this is already visible: the pressure and hope are on states’ ability to mobilise domestic resources. The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development’s recently agreed ‘Compromiso de Sevilla’ highlights the centrality of domestic public resources for sustainable development.
Max Gallien is a Research Fellow at the ICTD. His research specialises in the politics of informal and illegal economies, the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa and development politics. He completed his PhD at the London School of Economics. Max co-leads the informality and taxation programme with Vanessa, as well as the ICTD’s capacity building programme.
Martin Hearson is a Research Fellow at IDS, Research Director of the ICTD and the International Tax programme lead. His research focuses on the politics of international business taxation, and in particular the relationship between developed and developing countries. Before joining ICTD, Martin was a fellow in international political economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, teaching courses on political economy and global financial governance.
Giulia Mascagni is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies and Executive Director of the ICTD. Her main area of work is taxation, but she also has research interest in public finance, evaluation of public policy, and aid effectiveness. She is an economist by training, holding a PhD in Economics from the University of Sussex. Her main geographical interest lies in African countries, with a particular focus on Ethiopia and Rwanda.
Dr Giovanni Occhiali is a Development Economist based at the Institute of Development Studies, where he works on a number of projects related to Tax Administration and Compliance, Tax and Governance and co-leads ICTD’s capacity building programme together with Dr Max Gallien. His research focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa, and outside of the field of taxation his main interests are energy economics and industrial policies. He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham and prior to joining ICTD, he was a Researcher at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and an Overseas Development Institute Fellow at the National Revenue Authority of Sierra Leone.
Daisy Ogembo is a Research Fellow at ICTD. Often using an interdisciplinary approach, her work focuses on the taxation of hard-to-tax groups, constitutional issues in taxation, and digital aspects of taxation. She earned her DPhil from the University of Oxford and was the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and the Harvey Fellowship. Prior to joining ICTD, Daisy was an Assistant Professor of law at the University of Birmingham. Her current research includes completing a monograph on taxation and transformative constitutionalism, investigating legal and governance issues in the use of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in tax administration, and expanding her research on higher income earners in the informal sector.
Vanessa van den Boogaard is a Research Fellow at the ICTD and a Senior Research Associate at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She completed her PhD thesis on informal revenue generation and statebuilding in Sierra Leone, and has ongoing research on the topic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia. Vanessa leads the ICTD’s new programme on civil society engagement in tax reform and co-leads the research programme on informal taxation.
Citation: Gallien, M. et al. (2025) The Tax Era of Development: Taxing Smarter for Equity, Growth, and Resilience, ICTD Policy
Brief 18, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, DOI: 10.19088/ICTD.2025.039
