By Henrique Alencar, Policy Advisor Tax and Inequality at Oxfam and Andrea Salazar Cardero, Intern with Oxfam Novib
This article can also be accessed in French here.
Building on a decade of dedicated efforts to highlight gender disparities in fiscal systems, the Fair Tax Monitor (FTM) has joined forces with Expertise France. This partnership seeks to deepen the understanding of how tax policies affect women and girls, and to drive meaningful change towards gender equality.
As part of the special focus that Oxfam and Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA) place on the intersection of gender inequalities and tax justice, the FTM has over the past decade undergone multiple efforts to improve the gender lens of its research methodology and ensure that its reports properly reflect the impact that tax systems have on women and girls. Oxfam and TJNA understand that a truly fair tax system must be a gender-just system and that only by addressing the underlying biases in our fiscal frameworks can we move toward a more equitable future.
Following the publication of gender-focused FTM reports in Uganda (2021) and Zambia (2022) as part of the EU-funded Fiscal Justice for Women and Girls project, the FTM has continued to develop its work on tax & gender – through webinar deliveries for its partners, presentations in academic conferences and participation in civil society discussions on the issue.
New Partnership with Expertise France
As part of this ongoing effort, Oxfam and TJNA are delighted to announce a new partnership with Expertise France under the GET Gender Equality in Taxation project to further advance the tax & gender work within the FTM.
This one-year initiative brings together Oxfam, TJNA, Expertise France and other partner organizations with the goal of advancing the gender focus of the FTM methodology and producing three national reports – in Benin, Cameroon and Senegal – exclusively focused on the intersection of tax and gender.
The GET project has the overall objective of reducing gender inequalities in African tax and customs systems, particularly through strengthening actions aimed at reducing inequalities in the policies, structures, and performance of African tax and customs administrations. The project is structured around three mutually reinforcing pillars:
- A facility to provide technical assistance to public entities
- A support to research on the intersections of gender and tax
- A support to CSOs advocacy efforts
Funded by the French Treasury, for 42 months, since April 2024, the GET project falls within France’s international strategy for feminist diplomacy (2025-2030), which defines common objectives for all French international and European action and supports the full achievement of gender equality as an essential lever for sustainable development and the building of peaceful, just, and inclusive societies.
Deliverables and new FTM reports
The collaboration with Expertise France will focus on Benin, Cameroon and Senegal, with the clear aim of identifying the hidden gender biases in national tax systems and developing clear policy recommendations to improve the situation of women and girls in the region.
As part of the GET FTM project, a thematic chapter focused on tax & gender will be developed by Oxfam, TJNA and Expertise France. The tax & gender chapter will enable local researchers to primarily focus on this issue and provide the framework to assess the impact that existing tax policies have on women and girls. As with other FTM thematic chapters developed in the past years, the chapter will allow national reports to clearly focus on the topic and make a precise presentation of the national context.
The GET project will include extensive participation of local partner organizations (Social Watch in Benin, CRADEC in Cameroon and Forum Civil in Senegal) that will lead in-country efforts to gather data, host workshops for high-level engagement with government institutions and civil society, and shape national-level advocacy strategies.
Oxfam, TJNA and Expertise France will host a training event for civil society organizations in Senegal over the next month, providing the opportunity to develop the capacity and research skills of the local partner organizations through shared experiences and a detailed analysis of the methodology documents. The training will provide the partner organizations the required tools to draft the national reports focused on tax and gender over the upcoming months.
Stay tuned for updates on the training event, the launch of the three reports and all follow-up activities of advocacy and influencing!