Diakonia 2018-2023 Befrämja inhemsk resursmobilisering i Afrika söder om Sahara

The following is a limited selection of achievements for the entire programme period, July 2018 - February 2024: Outcome 1: Five partners shared the responsibility for this outcome and key interventions were around media and advocacy engagements with Members of Parliament, CSOs, revenue authorities, Ministries of Finance etc., with the aim of influencing policy and decision makers within EAC, SADC, and ECOWAS to take action in ensuring harmonized standards of taxation and plugging loopholes that facilitate tax evasion and tax avoidance. As an example, progress was made in SEATINIs efforts related to policies to align tax incentives within RECs. Advocacy efforts also went beyond the national and subregional level and contributed to the landmark resolution for a 'tax convention' that was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2023. For decades, the majority of UN members from the global South have called for the UN to establish an intergovernmental tax body, and the new resolution is a fist step towards creating that intergovernmental body. On the note of beneficial ownership, Transparency International Kenya engaged Rwandas parliament in dialogues centred on beneficial ownership transparency laws which led to the passage of the procurement law in November 2022 by Rwandas parliament. The new law governs public procurement which has provisions on beneficial ownership transparency in public procurement. South Africa also passed new laws requiring companies to maintain and update beneficial ownership information. TJNAs partners in these countries played a big role in championing for international best standards in the drafting, enactment and in the implementation of laws. Results were also noted in relation to efforts around Double Taxation Agreements (DTAs). As a result of the Public Interest Litigation cases in the Kenyan High Court on Mauritius and the subsequent case challenging 10 Kenyan DTAs, public participation process surrounding DTAs has improved. In August 2022, the Kenyan government called for public consultations before signing a proposed DTA with China. Outcome 2: Key interventions under this objective were around media engagements and policy advocacy involving key stakeholders such as parliamentarians and CSOs to call for accountability and prudent public debt management. Most of the progress is linked to the indicators on EAC, SADC, and ECOWAS member states attaining debt convergence criteria as stipulated in the regional finance and investment protocols, and the establishment of public debt registries. Law developments were achieved in SADC and EAC. To ensure regional convergence and harmonization of laws in the SADC Region, a SADC Model Law on Public Finance Management was drafted and adopted. AFRODAD was part of the technical committee that worked on the law, and sponsored physical and virtual consultations to mobilize civil society input. In the EAC, the EAC Surveillance, Compliance and Enforcement Bill 2022 was passed following SEATINI's advocacy efforts, and an uptdated external debt register was published by Tanzanias National Treasury in 2022 as a result of TI Kenyas advocacy. Diakonia notes that failure by some of the member states to domesticate protocols that regulate investments remains an obstacle to attaining concrete results under this outcome. Worth noting is that where there are successes, it is linked to parliamentarians who have been receptive to the training offered by AFRODAD and who have opened the space for CSO engagements. While partners continued to call for prudent public debt management, there was an observation that the ambition for Outcome 2 may have been set too high at the inception. Outcome 3: Key interventions were around advocacy engagements with CSOs, parliamentarians, and other relevant institutions working on natural resource governance to support implementation of the Africa Mining Vision (AMV) and EITI frameworks. Progress was only made on two out of the five indicators under this outcome. In EAC and ECOWAS, there were more results touching on legislation that support the implementation of AMV and EITI. The results can be attributed to governments and state agencies that accommodated CSO perspectives and recognized the role that CSOs play in the policy discourse. This was for instance evidenced by the opportunities that ACEP received to engage key stakeholders in pushing for policy reforms under this outcome. An increase of active citizenship was noted regard to following up the implementation of the AMV and EITI in the various project countries. Results were also noted in relation to halting revenue leakages. Following ACEPs advocacy campaign to ensure that Ghanas government pays attention to revenue leakages in the exploitation of low value minerals (such as gravel and talc that are extracted from quarries), Ghana's Ministry of Finance committed to collaborate with the private sector to deploy digital systems to monitor production the quarrying sector to optimize collection of tax revenues. Building on the experience, the Ministry then expanded the scope to also include other mining operations, such as sand and salt extraction. Outcome 4: Under the leadership of Diakonia, the collaboration between the consortium members gradually improved and the programme recorded more results as the years progressed. The technical capacity of the partners to implement and achieve planned results significantly increased. Diakonias close accompaniment provided the partners with the support they required to continue implementing, monitor progress and achieving results. Diakonias efforts were also instrumental in strengthening the three mainstreaming perspectives on conflict sensitivity, the environment and, above all, on gender. Diakonias efforts to mainstream feminist principles strengthened the partners capacity to integrate feminist analysis in economic policy making in Africa, specifically on issues of fiscal policy and domestic resource mobilisation. It is envisioned that by growing the numbers of those trained in feminist economics of fiscal policy and resource mobilisation, and by empowering them to claim greater space in their institutional environments, new avenues for policy change will be created. In addition to this, Diakonia managed to create a closer collaboration with the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ), an expert organization on feminist economics, which led to strengthened gender awareness within the DRM discourse among the consortium members. This awareness came forth very strongly in the proposal for a second phase of the programme for which the Embassy signed an agreement with Diakonia in mid-2024. As a sign of enhanced commitment to mainstream gender in their work, TJNA developed a tax and gender programme in 2022, and was able to secured new funds to this end. Furthermore, AFRODAD built capacity of female parliamentarians in SADC on public debt and gender; parliamentary oversight in curbing IFFs; and on the correlation between debt and Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). As a result, the parliamentarians formed the SADC Female Network of MPs as an immediate outcome of the training. This network remains a platform to champion economic issues affecting women. In addition to these results, the Embassy notes that the consortium partners have increasingly demonstrated a joint ownership of the programme and its overall results, and their respective responsibilities have become increasingly defined and reported on. This is an improvement compared to the initial part of the programme.

The development objective is improved living conditions for rights holders in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) through increased domestic resource mobilization in the SADC, EAC and ECOWAS member states. More specifically: 1) Regional parliaments promote Regional Economic Communities (RECs) as single investment areas through implementing common tax regimes in line with the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) Framework and African Union High Level Panel recommendations on illicit financial flows and by encouraging member states to establish beneficial ownership registers and transfer pricing units 2) Regional parliaments will be convinced to hold the council of ministers accountable for prudent public debt management in line with the SADC Finance and Investment Protocol. 3) Regional parliaments will be convinced to encourage member states to implement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the African Mining Vision (AMV). 4) The institutional and administrative capacity of Diakonia’s regional partners implementing the program will be increased, by assessing partners’ capacity needs, developing and implementing capacity strengthening plans for each partner, and assisting the partners in applying for observer status with the three regional economic organizations.