Third meeting of the member countries of the Addis Tax Initiative

The meeting kick-started the process of establishing consultative groups for each of the three ATI commitments and offered a chance for members to exchange on DRM-related topics.

On 13 February 2018, the member countries of the Addis Tax Initiative (ATI) held a meeting in New York City to begin the process of establishing three consultative groups, one for each of the ATI commitments. The meeting provided an opportunity to update the ATI members on a number of organisational issues, give an outlook on the progress made towards achieving ATI Commitment 1, and for the ATI Steering Committee to discuss the proposed scope of work for the ATI Consultative Groups. This included identifying the deliverables and potential synergies for operationalisation, as well as potential issues for establishing and managing effective consultative groups.

Significantly, it also  provided a space for partner countries to present their domestic revenue mobilisation (DRM) challenges, strategic foci, and how they perceive the ATI can help. The ATI was seen as useful in its contribution towards promoting technical assistance, especially regarding the country-specific Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT) Reports and Strategic Plans that are aligned to the ATI commitments. It was also requested that the ATI continue to strengthen the dialogue and sharing of country experiences, as well as to ensure the implementation of the broadly agreed 2017/2018 ATI plan, which symbolises the ATI's collective aspirations for improved DRM.

The session was opened by the two ATI Co-Chairs, Elfrieda Tamba (Liberia) and Steven Rozner (USA). They presented members of the ATISteering Committee for the 2017/18 term: The Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Liberia, Sweden and the United States. In order to reflect the equal number of ATI development partners and partner countries, the ATI Steering Committee now consists of three representatives from ATI partner countries and three representatives from ATI development partners. Initially, it was composed by representatives from two large and two small development partners and two partner countries). 

Steven Rozner shortly introduced the 2017/18 ATI work plan. The work plan foresees a clear focus on exploring ways to support the pursuit of the fulfilment of the three ATI commitments and on involving ATI members more strongly into the further development of the Initiative, particularly by establishing the ATI consultative groups.

During the afternoon session, members began to form the ATI consultative groups with the aim of organising and executing activitgies to support the fulfilment of the ATI commitments. All ATI signatories are invited to actively participate in one or multiple consultative groups to enrich the discussion with their perspectives.

The ITC Secretariat sincerely thanks all ATI members for their contributions and commitments to establishing and maintaining the ATI Consultative Groups. We look forward to strengthening strategic and coherent cooperation within and across the groups towards the ATI Commitmets in 2018.