UNDP Introduces Initiative to Help Countries with Taxation, Enhance SDGs

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has recently announced an initiative to support developing nations with domestic resource mobilisation and achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Tax for SDGs Initiative will help developing economies overcome the pandemic-induced recession by increasing their economic resilience through taxation by empowering national tax administrations and ministers of finance to curb tax avoidance and evasion. It will also help countries align fiscal policies and taxes with the SDGs.

Taxation is essential to attaining the SDGs since it is at the heart of public development financing.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, rising food and fuel prices, and the global economy in turmoil, developing countries need more money to move forward and meet the goals of the 2030 Agenda.

The Tax for SDGs programme focuses on practical initiatives for creating capacity and assisting in human, institutional, and societal transformation in tax systems.

The new Tax for SDGs Initiative aims to help governments use taxation as a tool for revenue collection, as well as a policy instrument to encourage sustainable growth strategies and influence behaviour toward desired outcomes in climate, nature, health, gender, and governance, to speed up progress toward the SDGs.

Achim Steiner, the UNDP Administrator, said:

"At this pivotal moment, we need to find new ways to drive finance towards the SDGs to tackle poverty and inequalities; and advance inclusive economic growth that is centred around the climate action and the protection of our natural world. UNDP’s Tax for SDGs initiative unites the specialized expertise of a range of international stakeholders to boost the ability of developing countries to use taxation as a policy instrument to finance a greener, more sustainable future for all."

Mr Ville Skinnari, Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade of Finland, said:

"UNDP, through its country offices, can play a crucial role in enhancing tax policy coherence and donor coordination at the country level. We do encourage all donors to participate in this coordination for a greater shared impact."

Muhammad Nami, Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Nigeria, said:

"Through the Tax for SDGs initiative, UNDP should be able to support African countries in their efforts to reduce domestic tax base erosion and support the digitalisation of tax administrations, as well as rally well-meaning stakeholders to lend their voices to ensuring that the rules developed and implemented at the international level for the taxation of MNEs, especially within the context of the digital economy, is fair to developing countries."

Source: UNDP