2025 marks the 10th anniversary of the Fair Tax Monitor (FTM). The FTM was developed within the joint Oxfam-TJNA CRAFT project which started in 2011. This project was facilitating a learning community of African and Asian CSOs that jointly worked to strengthen capacities on research and advocacy on fair taxation.
As we celebrate this moment, we speak with two of the founding members of Fair Tax Monitor, Ilse Balstra of Oxfam Novib and Ishmael Zulu of Tax Justice Network Africa and ask them to reflect on the challenges and success of the initiative and what they’re looking forward to next for the FTM.
Ishmael Zulu of Tax Justice Network Africa and Ilse Balstra of Oxfam Novib
Interviewer: Thank you for joining me today, Ilse and Ishmael. The project has come such a long way since its inception, looking back what would you say are some of the key milestones achieved over the past decade?
Ilse: Fair taxation plays a quiet but powerful role in tackling the challenges people care about most from funding healthcare and climate resilience to supporting education and infrastructure. It’s a key tool for building stronger, more equitable societies. Whether the goal is clean energy, better schools, or human rights, fair tax systems help make it happen. Over the past few years, we’ve worked to bring taxation into the spotlight — not just as a technical issue, but as a vital part of the solutions people care about. We’ve supported our partners in building the capacity to integrate tax into their work on gender equality, climate action, essential services, and beyond.
Ishmael: I think the creation of our Methodology Toolkit, which is a really comprehensive resource and was co-created with our many partners has been a vitally important moment in our evolution. Developing a tool that is genuinely useful and applicable to taxation systems and doing so with the input of national experts helped us build a strong foundation with a built-in group of supporters and advisors to help sustain our work.
It also really set us on the path of making sure the FTM is used to increase the ability and confidence of activists to engage in dialogue on fair taxation with policy makers. In this sense the process of creating the Methodology is integrally linked with its purpose of being used as a tool to educate, advocate and stimulate discussion with policy makers.
Ilse: Yes, and I also think the fact that the FTM has now been used in 17 countries across the globe (with more reports from new countries to come later this year) speaks to its usefulness and flexibility as a policy instrument. Our addition of thematic chapters that highlight specific areas that fair taxation can really have an impact on such as our Gender and Taxation chapter; is also a milestone we are very happy about.
Interviewer: Ten years ago, the first FTM was launched, can you share some of the initial challenges faced during the project’s early days?
Ilse: The CRAFT learning community was the perfect breeding ground for developing the Fair Tax Monitor. We started with a pilot group of with Oxfam and TJNA staff and colleagues from SEATINI Uganda, Forum Civil Senegal and SUPRO Bangladesh with whom we step by step developed the different pillars of the methodology and tested it in 4 pilot countries. I think some key initial challenges were organizational challenges of facilitating multi-country discussions and co-creation. In those days only Skype or via landline services was it possible to have multi-person calls and these were of quite bad quality with people dropping off all the time. Also having a combined community of Francophone and Anglophone CSOs was challenging. But with a lot of patience and dedication we succeeded. Also, we were lucky to have some resources for two face-to-face meetings where we could take final decisions and validate our work with the broader stakeholders.
Ishmael: When working in a multi-country project there is a challenge of developing a methodology that is flexible enough to adapt to diverse national contexts, but that is also grounded in universally accepted principles of fair taxation. I think we have successfully struck a good balance between the two by ensuring that all the tools are co-created in collaboration with the partners in the different countries. We pilot any adaptations to the methodology and before the start of each new research we engage in joint reflection with our partners on possible challenges with the methodology in their particular context.
Interviewer: In terms of celebrating success what has been the most rewarding aspect of working on this project?
Ilse: Fair taxation is the corner stone of the social contract between the citizen and the state. For me the most rewarding is seeing people we work with evolve over the years increasingly engaging in dialogue on fair taxation. In 2023 we did a survey with FTM partners in where 17 out of 20 respondents affirmed that working with the FTM had improved their ability and confidence to discuss fair taxation with other organizations and government bodies.
Ishmael: During the development of the FTM, implementing in-country partners need to engage various stakeholders continuously and this has created networks within countries that go beyond just the FTM to collaborate on various matters. The most rewarding thing for me has been seeing country partners carry these relationships forward even after the initial implementation phase, using them to address broader challenges and opportunities. It’s been incredibly fulfilling in some countries to witness how what started as technical collaboration around the FTM has grown into enduring partnerships that promote knowledge sharing, strengthen local systems, and foster a sense of shared ownership and momentum for sustainable development.
Interviewer: How would you say the FTM has impacted taxation systems and attitudes towards them in the countries in which it operates?
Ishmael: Using our methodology, FTM national reports provide evidence which can be used to identify the main bottlenecks in national tax systems. The reports also recommend solutions which helps to stimulate discussions around fair taxation. We saw this recently with the publication of our FTM Nigeria report where government officials did engage which the report and its findings.
Crucially, because the creation of any FTM report is based on mutual learning and technical assistance, FTM programs work to increase partners’ fiscal knowledge and their capacity to engage with policy makers.
Ilse: We also used that survey to gather testimonials from partners and it was noted that while on one level the FTM allows participants to better understand their taxation systems and leads to the creation is a report, with participation of many stakeholders in the process, it also opens multiple research avenues into other relevant areas such as tax and finance, or tax and climate finance.
Interviewer: Finally, as you look to the next 10 years and beyond, what are the future goals and aspirations for the project?
Ilse: It would be great to keep expanding the FTM to other countries and regions, adapting it as needed and spreading a greater awareness of the crucial role taxation has to play in building fairer, safer, greener futures for us all.
I’m also looking forward to continuing and expanding our thematic priorities, so not just building knowledge on the technical elements of tax systems but also strengthening the links to other important themes such as climate, gender and extractives. We recently started a new project with Expertise France to support actions that aim to reduce gender inequalities in the tax and customs systems in Central and West Africa and this type of focused thematic work is very important.
Ishmael: I agree with all mentioned by Ilse and would just add that the idea of looking into different types of tax systems; ones that operate in more decentralized manner such as community-level tax systems for example is an area I think it would be interesting to explore. Either way there is certainly plenty more work for the FTM to do and feed into to help build more equitable taxation systems that work for all.
ENDS