18336 research outputs found
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How Will Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) Influence Tax Administration in Developing Countries?
No full textThis paper explores the potential benefits and risks to tax administrations of implementing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), a digital version of national currencies that is gaining momentum worldwide. It outlines some of the key features of CBDCs and then considers their implications for tax administration in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) generally. The emergence of CBDCs
provides LMICs with a significant opportunity to improve financial inclusion, improve payment systems and increase tax collection. CBDCs provide greater transparency, security and traceability, which could help tax authorities track income and net worth, detect tax evasion and increase tax revenue. However, there are also complex combinations of risks associated with deploying CBDCs.
The revenue authorities need to thoroughly assess how they should adapt to these challenges. Governments must also ensure that CBDCs are developed and implemented transparently, fairly and consistently with broader public policy goals. This will help maximise the potential benefits of CBDC adoption while mitigating the risks – which may be particularly significant in LMICs
The E-levy and Merchant Payment Exemption in Ghana
No full textMobile money-enabled digital merchant payments have significant promise for enhancing tax compliance in lowincome
countries, and addressing persistent challenges. First, digital merchant payments offered by mobile money
providers guarantee greater accessibility to safer and faster formal payment. Second, they help businesses to
keep comprehensive records of their activities, expenses, and receipts – enhancing accuracy of tax filing, and
perceptions of the tax administration’s monitoring and enforcement capabilities. Third, they improve businesses’
perceptions of the transparency and predictability of the tax system, by using more precise digital information for
tax calculations. In addition, governments can use digital merchant payments to encourage business formalisation,
by exempting them from new taxes on mobile money transactions. Many African governments use this strategy,
while taxing other transaction types – such as mobile money withdrawals and person-to-person transfers
Neglected Second and Third Generation Challenges of Urban Sanitation: A Review of the Marginality and Exclusion Dimensions of Safely Managed Sanitation
No full textSanitation is fundamental for health and wellbeing yet cities, especially in the global South, face challenges in providing safely managed sanitation systems. Global and national sanitation campaigns tend to focus on the visible aspects of being ‘on grid’ in terms of toilet construction and connections but rarely address the dangerous, invisible aspects of being ‘off grid’ such as poor or unsafe excreta disposal and inadequate faecal sludge management (often considered to be second or third generation sanitation challenges). These, however, tend to disproportionately affect poor and marginalised people in off-grid locations in rapidly urbanising areas. This review paper engages critically with the growing literature on the challenges of faecal sludge management and circular economy solutions. Through the lens of exclusion and marginality, we review debates regarding access to safely managed sanitation, the burden of sanitation workers and safely recovering value from shit. We argue that sanitation systems often reproduce and exacerbate existing societal hierarchies and discriminations in terms of unequal access to safely managed sanitation and the burden of maintaining sanitation infrastructures. It is thus important for future research on faecal sludge management and resource recovery from shit to focus on issues of marginality and exclusion
Recovery with Distress: Unpacking COVID-19 Impact on Livelihoods and Poverty in Rural Areas and Urban Low-Income Settlements of Bangladesh
No full textThe social and economic impact of COVID-19 has been deep, wide-ranging, and multidimensional. While anecdotal evidence of distress among the poor, particularly those with informal occupations, has been widespread, effective policy response has required real-time, researched data disaggregated for urban and rural populations and for various categories of the poor. The Power and Participation Research Centre and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development’s five-round panel survey during 2020–22 provides unique insights into how COVID-19 impacted specific categories of the poor and vulnerable population in Bangladesh, their coping strategies, and the extent to which policy support materialized. While the poor as a whole demonstrated their agency in the face of the crisis, their resilience has been as much about deepening vulnerability as about recovery, representing an unfair burden of distress resilience. Informal workers, women, and the urban poor have been disproportionately impacted
Protests, Fiscal Redistribution, and Government Responses: Evidence from Nigeria
No full textIn democracies, protests are often viewed by citizens as a costly last resort measure to demand more economic and political rights and resources from policymakers by whom they feel unheard. When citizens feel unheard, they may protest. A stark example of this was the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests ignited by the killing of George Floyd. Over 15 million people participated in BLM protests
in 2020 alone, and the protests in the 2010s resulted in it being labelled the ‘decade of protest.’ Many of these protests have highlighted distributive justice claims, from reparations to descendants of African slaves to redistribution of economic capital
The Role of Social and Behavioural Sciences in Emergencies and Crises
No full textSocial and behavioural sciences (SBS) have a lot to offer in a crisis situation. This report outlines what a crisis is and how it changes behaviours and realities during its existence, it gives case study examples of the impact of SBS during crises and why we need these approaches, outlines the key learnings from using these approaches and explains how SBS can be supported by donors
Covid Collective Learning Report
No full textThis report provides an overview the Covid Collective research platform, how it was operationalised, and the learning which emerged from the three-year programme. The foundation of the Covid Collective’s theory of change was the network and relationships that were established and developed to harness collaboration and sharing of knowledge across a platform of global research partners. We acknowledged the critical role knowledge sharing, learning and engagement played in creating a culture that could enable and catalyse evidence-based, transformative action in response to Covid-19. The network that was developed in forming the Covid Collective could then facilitate comparative learning and collective action, and generate new insights and knowledge on the factors that support more or less effective responses to Covid-19 and help to build resilience to address future global development challenges.</p
The Environmental Impacts of Illicit Drug Production
No full textThis rapid evidence review compiles findings on the environmental impacts of illicit drug production, focusing on water and soil pollution, ecosystem health, land use change, and waste management. It highlights the complexity of the issue, with significant gaps in understanding the long-term effects on ecosystems. The review also examines how prohibitionary drug policies may exacerbate environmental harm. Key findings include distinct regional patterns of drug use, complex relationships between land use change and drug production, and the persistence of biologically active compounds in water systems. Limited data and lack of cross-agency collaboration present challenges in addressing these issues effectively
Food Systems Interventions for Nutrition: Lessons from 6 Program Evaluations in Africa and South Asia
No full textAlthough there is growing global momentum behind food systems strategies to improve planetary and human health—including nutrition—there is limited evidence of what types of food systems interventions work. Evaluating these types of interventions is challenging due to their complex and dynamic nature and lack of fit with standard evaluation methods. In this article, we draw on a portfolio of 6 evaluations of food systems interventions in Africa and South Asia that were intended to improve nutrition. We identify key methodological challenges and formulate recommendations to improve the quality of such studies. We highlight 5 challenges: a lack of evidence base to justify the intervention, the dynamic and multifaceted nature of the interventions, addressing attribution, collecting or accessing accurate and timely data, and defining and measuring appropriate outcomes. In addition to more specific guidance, we identify 6 cross-cutting recommendations, including a need to use multiple and diverse methods and flexible designs. We also note that these evaluation challenges present opportunities to develop new methods and highlight several specific needs in this space
Researching Capacities to Sustain Social Protection in Protracted Crises. Part 2: Early Findings
No full textDespite significant attention and interest in shock-responsive social protection, a knowledge gap exists when it comes to our understanding of how to sustain capacity to deliver existing social programmes and systems in situations of climate and/or conflict crisis. BASIC Research is using a new tool that we have developed – the Capacity Cube – to explore this question and identify ways in which external actors might support the resilience of those systems and programmes. An explanation of the Capacity Cube framework is provided in an accompanying briefing (Slater 2024). The current briefing focuses on early findings emerging from research using the tool in Nigeria, Iraq, and Syria.</p