Development Finance International
12-15 December - Francophone Workshop Establishes PPP Working Group, Cotonou
DFI supported OIF in running a workshop on Public Private Partnerships for the Network of Finance Ministers from Francophone Low-Income Countries. Held in Cotonou, Benin and attended by senior officials from 18 network member countries, the workshop was facilitated by DFI, the IMF, the World Bank, Foley Hoag LLP, African Legal Support Facility, Expertise France, FinInfra, and the Association des Parlementaires Francophones.
The Heinrich Boell Foundation and Eurodad provided further support. Discussions focussed on legal and institutional structures, financial costs and risks, negotiating and renegotiating contracts, as well as transparency and accountability. At the end of the workshop, participants stressed the need to be extremely prudent in financing national development via PPPs, and agreed to create a working group and network to take forward joint work on this type of financing.
13 December - DFI Tax Database Used for UN-Oxfam Paper
DFI-Oxfam’s Tax Progressivity Database was used as a technical source for a briefing paper by Oxfam and the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Asia and The Pacific (ESCAP).
“Taxing for Shared Prosperity” highlights the increase in inequality in the Asia-Pacific region and offers policy options to close the growing wealth gap between rich and poor. Through the analysis of income and inequality trends, the report calls for governments in the region to take bold policy measures by introducing progressive tax policies, strengthening revenue mobilization and improving tax structure.
8-10 November - Oxfam Expert Meeting on Public Spending to Fight Inequality
DFI provided a resource person for an Oxfam expert meeting on best practices in using government spending to fight inequality. It presented on how to expand fiscal space to increase spending, on how public spending can best benefit women and girls and on the Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index.
The workshop was attended by participants from 14 Oxfam programme countries, as well as UN Women and the Uganda Ministry of Finance, who exchanged experiences on how best to influence government spending policies to ensure that they fight inequality more effectively. A communiqué establishing a Collaboration Group on Public Spending for inequality reduction was produced.
23 October - 3 November - Cameroon and Comoros Development Financing Assessment Missions
DFI has been contracted by UNDP as lead consultant for two missions to Cameroon and Comoros. The aim of the missions is to help both countries conduct a Development Financing Assessment (DFA) and to develop an Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF) to support the financing of their national development goals and the SDGs.
Consultations were held with government policymakers and officials, as well as representatives of parliament, civil society, the private sector and the donor community, in order to help governments identify key types of development financing which could be scaled up to support the SDGs. The missions also explored the key reinforcements which could be made to government policies and systems to ensure more successful mobilisation and utilisation of development financing. For more on DFAs and INFFs, see here.
17-20 October - UN Tax Committee Meeting Discusses Taxing Donor Projects, Geneva
DFI and OIF attended the 15th meeting of the United Nations Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters in Geneva. This was the first meeting of the new committee appointed in 2017 and it aimed to set the agenda for the committee’s work for the next few years, given its expanded mandate and budget following the Addis Ababa Conference on Financing for Development.
The committee focussed its discussions on three areas of key concern to members of the OIF Finance Ministers’ Network: environmental taxation, taxing the digital economy and taxing donor-funded development projects. OIF intervened on the last set of issues, underlining the strong concerns of the Network that such projects (especially those which support highly profitable private sector enterprises) should not benefit from tax exemptions. The background papers for the meeting are available here.
