Presented by Eleanor Crook Foundation
U.S. statesman Benjamin Franklin once wrote: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” The latter, though, is not always as certain as Franklin thought.
Also in today’s edition: Africa hosts a major climate conference, and WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus sounds the alarm on trans fat.
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Taxing endeavor
The tax man cometh — but he may not cometh often enough in Africa.
On average, sub-Saharan Africa collects just 16% of its gross domestic product in taxes, far below the OECD average of 34%. The result? A reliance on external assistance as opposed to drumming up domestic resources to fund its own development, whether that be roads, hospitals, or schools.
Between large informal economies, volatile revenues from oil and mining, weak tax administrations, illicit financial flows, and eroding public trust that results from a lack of visible services, many countries on the continent struggle to secure a regular tax income, which leaves them with extremely limited public funds, my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz writes.
But drastic foreign aid cuts have changed the calculus — and urgency of pursuing greater domestic resource mobilization, or DRM, the process by which countries raise and spend their own funds for social and economic development.
Yet DRM is politically fraught — after all, who likes to pay more taxes, especially when you’re not seeing the government services you’ve ostensibly paid for? The status quo, however, may be ripe for change.
“This time, things are uniquely different because it is a moment of dwindling aid,” former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn Boshe tells Jesse. “I think it’s a blessing in disguise because people will wake up and try to look into their own environment and think about how to mobilize their own resources.”
Claver Gatete, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, puts it succinctly: “The reason it’s going to work is because there’s no other option.”
Read: Between aid cuts and debt crises, Africa bets on its own tax systems (Pro)
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Continental climate congress
The Africa Climate Summit is back — this time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Starting today, global leaders will gather for the second ACS, co-hosted by Ethiopia and the African Union, with a big goal in mind: unifying Africa’s voice ahead of the COP30 U.N. climate summit happening in Brazil in November.
The first summit in Nairobi in 2023 secured more than $20 billion in pledges and resulted in the Nairobi Declaration — a call for financial reform and the introduction of new international taxes to fund climate action. This year, leaders are expected to emerge with a unified African position ahead of COP30 and adopt the rather clunky title of the Addis Ababa Declaration on Accelerating Climate Action and Finance for Africa’s Green Future.
As the World Resources Institute puts it, this summit is “a key moment to secure fair, accessible financing, drive green industrial development that adds value to Africa’s resources and reshape the global narrative — recognizing Africa …. not just as a victim of climate change, but a leader in solutions.”
Heavyweights on stage will include Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, climate champion and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, AU Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, and the new African Development Bank president, Sidi Ould Tah.
Ethiopia, which just put in a bid to host COP32 in 2027, will also be under the microscope. “We have the capacity, the facilities, the location, the connectivity to host the much-anticipated climate summit,” Ethiopian President Taye Atske-Selassie said on Thursday. The Addis gathering will be one early test of that claim, as the country looks to position itself not only as among the world’s most vulnerable to climate shocks but also as a hub for global climate diplomacy.
+ My colleague Ayenat Mersie is at the Africa Climate Summit in Addis. If you’re there too, drop her a line at ayenat.mersie@devex.com.
Big shoes to fill
One closely watched headliner of the Africa Climate Summit will be Sidi Ould Tah, the AfDB’s new president. His name also repeatedly came up during our most recent This Week in Global Development podcast, where Ayenat laid out Tah’s ambitions to continue on the impressive gains made by his predecessor, Akinwumi Adesina. Among Tah’s goals: pivoting to new donors in the Persian Gulf States, job creation, and strengthening partnerships to mobilize capital.
Listen to the podcast episode: A new era at the African Development Bank, and Trump’s rescission package
Background reading: New AfDB president inherits a bigger bank — and tougher challenges
Not a game
It’s been called a game-changing drug, and the announcement that the Trump administration was going to provide it to millions in this time of aid austerity was in and of itself game-changing.
Or was it?
The State Department on Thursday announced plans to bring lenacapavir — a widely hailed potential innovation in preventing HIV — to 2 million people by 2028.
Through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, the State Department will partner with countries with the largest burden of HIV and AIDS “over the coming months to co-develop strategies for distributing lenacapavir, with a focus on preventing mother-to-child transmission,” according to the news release.
While some welcomed the news, others were less than impressed, my colleague Jenny Lei Ravelo reports.
Asia Russell of Health GAP describes it as “less than a drop in the ocean,” resulting in “virtually no impact on global HIV epidemiology.” In fact, one research study suggests 40 million more people need access to pre-exposure prophylaxis to reach epidemic control of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
Russell also criticizes the administration’s “illegal actions” of withholding billions of dollars of already appropriated money for PEPFAR, arguing it is the “biggest obstacle” to getting lenacapavir to millions of people who need it.
Read: US announces support for HIV prevention game-changer with mixed reactions
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Ingredient for success
Industrial trans fat doesn’t exactly scream “global health crisis,” but the chemical is responsible for over 278,000 deaths each year around the world.
The drive to eliminate it is a welcome one, writes World Health Organization chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in an opinion piece for Devex, along with Austrian minister Korinna Schumann, Norwegian minister Jan Christian Vestre, Omani minister Dr. Hilal bin Ali bin Hilal Alsabti, and Singaporean minister Ong Ye Kung.
“Industrially produced trans fat is a silent killer found in everyday products, often in baked goods, snacks, and margarine,” they write. “Trans fat has no known health benefits but numerous proven harms. Even small amounts can increase the risk of coronary heart disease.”
But there’s movement on the issue, with a draft declaration to be discussed at a high-level meeting on noncommunicable diseases at the United Nations General Assembly that will include a call to remove trans fatty acids from food.
It’s a big step in a campaign WHO launched in 2018 to eliminate trans fat from the processed food supply — a push that has been embraced by Denmark, Lithuania, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand, and, more recently, Austria, Norway, Oman, and Singapore.
“An essential ingredient in success against trans fat is the implementation of national systems to rigorously monitor and enforce the application of policies to remove the deadly threat from the food supply,” Tedros and his co-authors write. “Let’s build on this momentum and protect more people from this deadly product.”
Opinion: Now is the moment to eliminate a human-made health challenge — trans fat
Cooper pipeline
The United Kingdom has a new minister in charge of its aid department, following a reshuffle late last week.
Yvette Cooper, previously the home secretary, will now become the foreign secretary and lead the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Cooper’s former role involved leading on issues around migration, a highly contentious issue in the U.K. — and one which has absorbed large chunks of U.K. ODA for the past few years.
David Lammy will move from his former role as foreign secretary to become deputy prime minister, after the previous holder of the post, Angela Rayner, resigned over a tax scandal. Lammy had held the post for a year, but also oversaw the FCDO brief while his party was in opposition, and had been a powerful force in steering the direction of Labour aid policy, consistently clashing with other figures over whether to restore an independent department to distribute aid, which he appears to have broadly opposed. He had been in the middle of planning a conference on the future direction of aid, as well as a new aid strategy. Now the future of those initiatives remains uncertain.
Cooper has limited international development experience. A search on Hansard, the official record of the U.K. Parliament, finds that she has used the phrase “international development” only five times in her parliamentary career, the last time in 2015, and that she has never used the words “international aid” or “official development assistance.”
Bond, the U.K. network for INGOs, urged Cooper to use her new position to end the practice of using U.K. aid to cover asylum and refugee housing costs. It also called for an annual impact assessment of UK aid cuts.
Related: UK foreign secretary David Lammy strengthens his push for aid reform
In other news
WHO has urged the Taliban to lift its restrictions on female aid workers amid the earthquake response and recovery in Afghanistan. [Reuters]
The Pacific Islands Forum has kicked off in Solomon Islands without China and the United States, focusing on climate change and an “Ocean of Peace” declaration. [The Guardian]
Ethiopia is set to officially inaugurate the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Africa's largest hydroelectric plant. [BBC]
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About the author
Anna Gawel
Anna Gawel is the Managing Editor of Devex. She previously worked as the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat, the flagship publication of D.C.’s diplomatic community. She’s had hundreds of articles published on world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, politics, security, trade, travel and the arts on topics ranging from the impact of State Department budget cuts to Caribbean efforts to fight climate change. She was also a broadcast producer and digital editor at WTOP News and host of the Global 360 podcast. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Maryland in College Park.
