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The Gender Equality, Tax Justice and Economic Growth Conundrum – African Feminist Strategy meeting on Financing for Development & the Post 2015 Development Agenda
Posted on June 9, 2015 by FEMNET/By Nyaguthii Wangui Maina as a series of blog posts on the African Feminist Strategy meeting on Financing for Development & the Post 2015 Development Agenda, the first of which can be found here
A sitting Head of State in Africa in one of the regional economic bloc meetings once made an argument for the ongoing investments in his country; his government was primarily focused on improving economic growth by investing in the ‘productive sectors’ whilst would deal with maternal and child health care issues thereafter. A disgruntled participant in the same meeting interjected and posed the following question to the Head of State.n
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“How does an economy grow with dead people?”
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Principles of taxation depict that for a tax system to make any sense, it should be fair, equitable, transparent, accountable, efficient, effective and at the heart of it all, it should represent citizens as tax payers. If these principles are present then taxation will meet its objectives. Which to name a few are: Raise revenues in an equitable manner; redistribute income and wealth; regulate the economy and society; re-price goods and services; and recognize the role of eco systems. What has however come to light through various studies is that the missing objective has been a gender approach to taxation which in essence levels the field based on needs.
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