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Impacts of Internally Displaced Populations on Their Host Communities
No full textThe presence of displaced populations generally has positive or neutral economic impacts on host communities but can negatively affect health, education, environment, and security. Effects vary, creating 'winners' and 'losers' among host community segments, often harming disadvantaged groups like women. Labour markets experience mixed impacts, with job competition balanced by increased demand. Prices may rise or fall, while business growth often benefits. Environmental pressures and health system demands typically increase, with security impacts remaining mixed and socially perceived. Social cohesion is contingent on economic conditions and inter-group relations.</p
The Ghana E-Levy: Impact on the Usage of Mobile Money
No full textGhana introduced an electronic transaction levy (E-Levy) on digital financial transactions in May 2022, following many other countries in Africa. Our paper looks at the impact of the E-Levy on mobile money usage and user perceptions. We use data from the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications (GCT) on usage of several mobile money services (sending, receiving, payments, and withdrawals), and nationally representative survey data collected by the ICTD on individuals and businesses.</p
Children Enter the Adult Entertainment Sector and Face Labour Exploitation and Sexual Abuse
No full textThis is a report of CLARISSA Nepal Action Research Group 8, which is located in a busy commercial, historical and tourist destination in the centre of Kathmandu Valley. The area is famous for its multiple big-scale shopping complexes and wholesale markets and for being a hotspot for street vendors and small-scale Adult Entertainment Sector (AES) venues. As many children and young people work in the AES in this area, the location was selected as one of the most important working locations for CLARISSA Action Research. The theme of this group was 'Children enter the AES through friends, relatives, and unknown persons and face labour exploitation and sexual abuse'.</p
SSHAP West Africa Hub: Health Emergency Cycles and Social Context in West Africa
No full textThe SSHAP West Africa Hub brings together academics, humanitarian responders and public health practitioners primarily working in Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone to explore socio-political and historical issues shaping crises, with the intention of enhancing national and humanitarian programmes seeking to reach vulnerable groups.In this landscape paper, we aim to summarise the contextual factors that shape health emergencies and responses to health emergencies in the West Africa region (termed ‘health emergency cycles’). Drawing on examples from Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone, we explore the interrelationship of disease outbreaks with socio-cultural, economic and political contexts, and we address issues of response governance and local capacity within national health systems. We demonstrate how different emergencies are interconnected and related to long-term stressors in the region, arguing for a less siloed approach to response. Whilst we recognise the vast heterogeneity in the region, we draw on thematic commonalities that speak to wider regional issues. We conclude with some social science priorities for responding to crises.</p
Mobile Money Taxes: Knowledge, Perceptions and Politics. The Case of Ghana
No full textConsumer-level mobile money taxes are particularly controversial, and have sparked large-scale protests – prompting policy revisions in various countries, including Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, and Benin. Ghana’s electronic transfer levy (e-levy) followed this trend of public dissent, and triggered the country’s first budgetary rejection since 1981. Not surprisingly, the trend in mobile money usage in Ghana showed a sharp decrease in overall volume and value of mobile money transactions after implementation of the tax. This was followed by a gradual rise back to usage before the e-levy, coinciding with a reduction in the rate. The strong reaction and trend in mobile money usage after revision make understanding what lies behind public perceptions and behaviour especially important for informing the ongoing debate within Ghana and the region.</p
Unsuccessful Implementation of the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines in Low-Income Countries: The Case of Ethiopia
No full textThis policy brief is extracted from a full-fledged research report financed by the International Centre for Tax and Development through the Ethiopian Tax Research Network and published in the British Tax Review, Issue 2, 2023. Much international technical assistance is directed towards increasing the capacity of tax authorities in low-income countries to understand and effectively implement the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines and thus retain
their fair share of revenue from the transnational economic transactions of multinational enterprises. The outcome of such assistance in the case of Ethiopia has been generally disappointing. Despite more than a decade of effort and nearly two decades since the initial introduction of transfer pricing rules in the tax system, the Ethiopian tax administration has not successfully
completed a single transfer pricing audit. Three country-specific factors explain the poor implementation of transfer pricing rules in Ethiopia: the inability of tax officers to adapt from long-standing practices that run counter
to OECD Guidelines, institutional ambiguity and rivalry among tax policy and enforcement organs, and the possibility of mock compliance with international
standards without there being any such compliance in practice. Resolving some of the critical changes requires external technical assistance and decisive internal political and technocratic leadership, among other things
Pathways into the Tax Net: Better Ways to Register African Taxpayers
No full textSystems for registering taxpayers in sub-Saharan Africa are often poorly designed and managed. There are three characteristic problems: the process of registering new taxpayers is not sufficiently targeted on the people and businesses likely to be liable to pay tax; too many (nominal, unproductive) taxpayers are registered; and taxpayer identification (ID) details in the tax register
are inaccurate. These problems interact perversely – each exacerbates the
others. They will all to a large degree be solved, almost naturally, as a result of: (a) greater digitisation of tax administration generally, and (b) further interfacing between the digital systems of tax agencies and those of other (public sector) organisations, notably cross-government ID databases. But this takes time. There are significant shorter-term registration problems that need policy attention. In part they have not received it yet because these problems are rare in richer countries, which still exercise a huge influence on the tax reform agenda in Africa and other low-income regions. On the basis of recent experience in a range of
African countries, we list some taxpayer registration practices that should be abandoned or used sparingly, and some that should be used more widely, to better target registration on those businesses and individuals who should be
paying tax
Bridging Learning and Action: How Did CLARISSA’s Participatory Adaptive Management Approach Foster Innovation, Effectiveness, and Stakeholder Empowerment?
No full textChild Labour: Action-Research-Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia (CLARISSA) is an evidence and innovation-generation programme funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), responding to the challenge of the worst forms of child labour (WFCL) in Bangladesh and Nepal. It is a challenge characterised by a poor understanding of its drivers and a lack of evidence on what works to combat it. To handle such fundamental uncertainty, the programme adopts a child-centric and participatory action research approach, which is supported by an adaptive management model to respond better to challenges and opportunities. From its inception, the programme needed to navigate shocks and challenges, such as Covid-19 lockdowns, political upheaval, and sustained budget cuts, which put its capacity to learn and evolve to the test. This paper shares insights emerging from evaluating CLARISSA’s participatory adaptive management (PAM) practices, connecting them with current discussions on adaptive management. It provides an in-depth evaluation of CLARISSA’s PAM approach, exploring how adaptive strategies were implemented and evolved throughout the programme’s life cycle. Multiple cases of adaptation and misadaptation were selected and analysed through a series of in-depth interviews and review of programme documentation, allowing us to assess whether and how the adaptive management practices have been operationalised, the degree to which they led to enhanced decision-making and effectiveness, and their empowering effect on children and other programme stakeholders. Through conceptual analysis and real-world examples, the paper examines the key stages and critical dimensions of PAM, conveying the complexities and dynamism of adaptive management in development work, while highlighting both the successes and challenges encountered in operationalising PAM within CLARISSA
Digitalisation of State Services in Bangladesh
No full textThe government-led digital strategy in Bangladesh began well before the Covid-19 pandemic; the pandemic itself simply accelerated the digitalisation of public services globally. This report examines digital innovations across essential public services in Bangladesh, particularly those spurred on by the Covid-19 pandemic. It highlights major accountability and access outcomes, especially for marginalised groups across different capacities, identities, and geographic regions. The report looks at digitalisation experiences in key areas, including education, health, social protection, accountability, and addressing violence against women. While the pandemic accelerated these efforts, it also revealed persistent digital inequalities in terms of access, capacity, and structural factors such as human capital, political economy, and social and cultural norms. Rather than framing technology as an automatically efficiency-enhancing tool, the report illustrates on the ground realities and constructs a more nuanced perspective. It positions technology as an enabler in realising better futures together, while also underscoring challenges around digital rights and government oversight. The report calls for deliberative approaches in designing digital public services, enabling digital ethics in regulation, and gathering critical data on minority groups, connectivity, and actual digital service users. This frames technology as part of a broader, inclusive development agenda, rather than an ends in itself
Workplace Safety
No full textThe Child Labour: Action-Research-Innovation in South and South-Eastern Asia (CLARISSA) programme uses Action Research (AR) to understand the dynamics which drive the worst forms of child labour (WFCL), and to generate participatory innovations which help to shift these underlying dynamics and mitigate their worst effects.
Through 13 Action Research Groups (ARGs) in Bangladesh and 12 groups in Nepal, the programme is generating a rich understanding – particularly through children’s lived experiences – of the complex underlying drivers of harmful work and working children and their employers are themselves defining, piloting and evaluating their own innovative actions that aim to increase children’s options to avoid WFCL.
This group worked on the theme ‘Workplace safety’