Africa's Digital Economy Must Have Women at Its Heart

The Pan African Conference on Illicit Financial Flows and Taxation is an annual convening that brings together the key stakeholders involved in efforts to curb illicit financial flows (IFF) and to enhance domestic resource mobilisation in Africa.

This year’s conference, held from 1 to 3 October in Nairobi, Kenya, was organised under the theme Taxing Intangibles, Financial Technology (FinTech) and the Digitalised Economy: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Domestic Revenue Mobilisation in Africa. I spoke at the conference on the race to the bottom with regard to tax and what that means for Africa’s women and girls.

Drawing together actors from governments, civil society, international organisations, legislators, media, academia and national campaigners, the conference offers an opportunity to take stock of the current state of play on the illicit financial flows agenda in Africa, as well as the progress made through global, regional and country-level initiatives. It also acts as a platform to articulate problems, propose solutions and explore opportunities for collaboration and common action.

The growing role of digitalisation and technology presents a disruptive opportunity for African countries to leapfrog their  development and economic transformation. From a taxation perspective, digitalisation and technological advancements offer an opportunity for Africa countries to develop innovative policies to  enhance revenue mobilisation.

I am the Economic Justice lead for FEMNET and we were part of the co-conveners of the conference. Our role meant that we were able to ensure that there was a Pan African feminist lens throughout the event. This ensured that we moved beyond what typically happens with conferences on economic justice, where there is just one side event covering the “gender quotient”.

Our role also meant we were also part of the team that drafted the conference’s outcome statement, which will in turn feed into the meeting of African finance ministers in Addis Ababa next March. The evolution of Africa’s digital economy and the narrative being created around it must have women at its heart. This month’s PACIFF2019 conference was part of the efforts being made to ensure that this goal becomes a reality.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme, the International Inequalities Institute, or the London School of Economics and Political Science.