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Publication - Working Paper
Excise taxes and digital tax stamps: Do digital tax stamps work?
To effectively administer tax policy, tax administration must adjust to manage behavioural responses by firms. In financial year 2019/20, the Government of Uganda implemented a policy that required manufactures of some excisable goods to affix Digital Tax Stamps (DTS). In this paper, monthly excise tax returns data for four financial years are used to estimate the effect of...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Improving access to renewable energy in rural Sierra Leone
Download the policy brief here. In Sierra Leone, only about 5% of the population in rural areas have access to electricity. The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is supporting the Government of Sierra Leone to increase access to electricity through the Rural Renewable Energy Project (RREP) with funding from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and...
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Publication - Project Report
Rural Renewable Energy Project in Sierra Leone: Impact evaluation report
The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is supporting the Government of Sierra Leone’s (GoSL) goal of universal access to electricity by implementing the USD40+ million Rural Renewable Energy Project (RREP). RREP – funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)1 – is an ambitious electrification project that aims to provide access to...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Non-tariff barriers and regional integration in the East African Community
We conducted surveys with a representative sample of over 1,500 traders in markets near the Kenya-Uganda border, as well as a census of border clearing agents, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Larger traders are more likely to engage in cross-border trade, likely because the fixed costs of trade barriers mean that per-unit costs fall heaviest on smaller...
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Publication - Policy Brief
How data can improve property tax implementation in Rwanda
Rwanda introduced a new property tax law which entered into force on 1 January 2019. This property tax sought to increase municipal revenues from a low base and empower local government as part of a wider decentralisation process. IGC and the consulting firm GOPA, funded by GIZ, generated a prototype Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal (CAMA) for Kigali applying machine...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Responding to imported inflation in Uganda: Distributional impacts and policy options
Inflation is ravaging the world, driven by a combination of post-pandemic supply chain disruptions, a rebound in global demand, and the war in Ukraine. The first round-effects of the global inflation surge in Uganda have occurred via jumps in the prices of seven principal commodities, delivering particularly adverse hits to the incomes of the poor. As a small open...
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Publication - Project Report
Understanding non-tariff barriers and regional integration in the East African Community
This study investigates trade and regional integration within the East African Community (EAC), with a particular focus on agricultural goods traded between Kenya and Uganda. In recent years, the EAC has instituted several changes in trade policy, including the introduction of the common market, One Stop Border Post (OSBP), and the single-window policy (a simplified...
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Publication - Miscellaneous
Mozambican trade statistics: Mind the gap!
Between 2016 and 2018, IGC Mozambique carried out three sector-level value chain studies, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Economy & Finance of Mozambique, on poultry, cotton and pigeon peas (Da Cruz and Oppewal 2018a, 2018b). These can be helpful in identifying sector-specific binding constraints and draw up the contours of concrete sector-specific pacts, with...
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Publication - Project Report
Trading up: Harnessing the African Continental Free Trade Area for growth in Uganda
African economies, including Uganda, have embarked on an ambitious programme of regional integration in the form of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). This paper uses newly sourced transaction level trade data for Uganda, and a partial equilibrium simulation model to assess the trade and revenue implications of reductions in tariffs and improvements in trade...
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Publication - Project Report
Market-driven strategies for combating aflatoxins in Rwanda
Aflatoxins are naturally occurring fungal by-products that contaminate crops – especially cereals and oilseeds – and the contamination may occur in the field and storage. At low levels of dietary exposure, aflatoxins are associated with immune suppression (Mohsenzadeh et al., 2016), low birth weight (Passarelli et al. 2020), stunted growth in children (Rasheed et al....
Publication - Policy Brief
Responding to imported inflation in Uganda: Distributional impacts and policy options
Inflation is ravaging the world, driven by a combination of post-pandemic supply chain disruptions, a rebound in global demand, and the war in Ukraine. The first round-effects of the global inflation surge in Uganda have occurred via jumps in the prices of seven principal commodities, delivering particularly adverse hits to the incomes of the poor. As a small open...