In recent years, domestic and international policy attention has often focused on broadening the tax base in order to include a greater share of the population in the ‘tax net’. This is based, in part, on the hope that the expansion of taxation will re …

Armed groups tax. Journalistic accounts often include a tone of surprise about this fact, while policy reports tend to strike a tone of alarm, highlighting the link between armed group taxation and ongoing conflict. Policymakers often focus on targetin …

Two billion people live in countries where development outcomes are affected by fragility, conflict and violence. By 2030, up to two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor could live in fragile contexts. Because of the security risks and the weakness of st …

Community-driven development (CDD) has long been embraced by international development partners as a means of delivering public goods and strengthening social capital and cohesion, particularly in fragile contexts. To receive external support, CDD proj …

Community contributions are often required as part of community-driven development (CDD) programmes, with payment encouraged through matching grants. However, little remains known about the impact of matching grants, or the implications of requiring co …

Taxing the informal economy neither guarantees substantial new revenue nor a fairer tax system. Instead, it risks increasing the burden on some of the most vulnerable groups. In the middle of an economic crisis, this would serve to reinforce deeply emb …

Most people in low-income countries contribute substantially to the financing of local public goods through informal revenue generation (IRG). However, very little is known about how IRG works in practice. We produce novel evidence on the magnitude and …

There is increasingly strong evidence that taxation can contribute to expanded government responsiveness and accountability. However, such positive connections are not guaranteed. Rather, they are shaped by the political and economic context and specif …

Taxation is high on the international development agenda, largely due to growing evidence that it can not only provide sustainable development funding, but also contribute to expanded responsiveness and accountability in government. This is because: (i …

This paper considers how men and women in eastern and northern Sierra Leone interact differently with formal and informal revenue collection. It argues that the literature on tax and gender equity needs to be expanded in low-income countries to pay gre …

Governance practices in peripheral regions of low-income countries often diverge dramatically from statutory rules, with actual governance often representing a hybrid of formal rules and informal practices that are often highly normalized and widely ac …

Citizens often pay a range of ‘taxes’ that differ substantially from statutory policies, in low-income and post-conflict countries and particularly in rural areas. These ‘informal taxes’, paid to a variety of state and non-state actors, are frequently …

The progress of decentralization efforts in Africa has brought with it expanded discussion of local government taxation, and the potential for tax reform to spur broader state building and governance gains. This paper correspondingly provides a ground …