The TaxEd Alliance brings together in partnership global tax justice and education actors to make a transformative breakthrough in the domestic financing of public education. ActionAid, the Global Alliance on Tax Justice (and regional networks Tax Justice Network Africa and Tax and Fiscal Justice Asia), the Tax Justice Network, Education International and the wider Global Campaign for Education movement is creating a strong civil society alliance at national, regional and global levels to advocate for and bring about commitments to increase the domestic financing of public education systems in a sustainable and progressive way. This is critical especially tolower income governments in order that they can achieve the Sustainable Development Goal for Education (SDG4).
Lower income countries, even those that spend a significant share of their national budgets on education are unable to fulfil their SDG4 commitments, because there is insufficient revenue to fund quality, public education. Thus, countries need to broaden their tax base in progressive and sustainable ways. Due to the way the COVID-19 pandemic was managed, on top of years of austerity policies, education systems face a devastating crisis in public financing, and uncertainty over the quality of learning available when children can return to education. It is estimated that between 10 and 30 million girls who previously attended school will not return. They will also be at greater risk of early marriage, early pregnancy, and contracting HIV. Solutions for education financing and tax reform must respond to this challenge. The TaxEd Alliance connects CSO stakeholders working on tax issues with those working on education to create an effective transnational CSO response. The Alliance aims to integrate the voices of marginalized communities with national level CSOs such as teacher unions and tax justice alliances, and coordinate their responses across national, sub-regional, regional and global agendas and arenas.
Building on work done in Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania over many years, this project will extend the national focus to Nepal, Senegal and Zambia. The project builds core alliance members’ capacities to undertake data analysis, collaborative research, budget tracking and advocacy on gender-responsive public education. It strengthens alliances at the national, regional and global levels for learning, information exchange and advocacy. Improved mechanisms for cross-sector dialogue between civil society working on education and tax, with finance and education ministries, revenue authorities, local education groups and international organizations are backed by an extensive programme of research that tracks global, regional and national commitments related to education financing and provides evidence and solutions for progressive taxes to fund education. At the global level, the Alliance uses its extensive network and links with government and international stakeholders to follow up on and develop cross-sectoral recommendations for international education actors including the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) to strengthen and expand their work. This helps tosustain pressure on governments for commitments to reform domestic tax policy or practice, and increase sustainable revenues to fund education. It creates a sustained and high-profile presence in global fora, facilitating connections between civil society actors, the GPE and multilateral organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, around the role of tax in financing the Sustainable Development Goal 4.