USAID Fiscal Accountability and Sustainable Trade, First Quarterly Report, December 2019

The project aims to enable USAID to bring a systems approach to addressing public financial management (PFM), trade capacity building, macroeconomic planning and policies, and other economic governance issues. The FAST team provides on-call analysis and expertise on issues of PFM, trade, macroeconomic planning and policies, and other economic governance to USAID missions and partner countries. The project is divided into two workstreams: Technical leadership, including strengthened understanding of leading practices and tools, and USAID Operating Unit and Partner Country Support. Core Management is responsible for overseeing the project's overall direction and ensuring that the work plan and financial plan are submitted and approved. The project's first-year work plan and financial plan were submitted and approved in November 2019. Workstream 1: Technical leadership, including strengthened understanding of leading practices and tools, focuses on providing on-demand assistance to USAID missions and partner countries. During the first quarter, the FAST team provided on-demand assistance, including revising the Tax Effort indicator and reviewing Collecting Taxes Database (CTD) indicators. The team also participated in presenting the 2019 Collecting Taxes Database at the International Consortium on Governmental Financial Management (ICGFM) forum. Revenue Performance and Tax Administration – an empirical analysis is a research project that investigates the relationship between tax administration characteristics and revenue performance. The project uses statistical analysis to assess the contributions of various tax administration characteristics to the productivity of personal and corporate income taxes and VAT, as well as the overall administrative cost efficiency of the tax system. Half of the data have been compiled into a comprehensive database, and efforts to create consistency and clean out errors will be completed in January 2020. Workstream 2: USAID Operating Unit and Partner Country Support focuses on providing support to USAID Operating Units and partner countries. The project is planning to provide Domestic Resource Mobilization Training to support host-country capacity to mobilize revenue and provide public services. The training will focus on developing the skills and knowledge of government officials to design and implement effective domestic resource mobilization strategies. The project's progress is reported according to the two project workstreams. The FAST team has made significant progress in providing on-demand assistance and conducting research on revenue performance and tax administration. The project's first-year work plan and financial plan have been submitted and approved, and the team is working to complete the research project and provide Domestic Resource Mobilization Training to support host-country capacity to mobilize revenue and provide public services.