The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) endorses the ATI objectives of the Addis Tax Initiative and has joined the Addis Tax Initiative as a supporting organisation.
The BMGF recognises the importance of domestic resource mobilisation towards sustainable development, focusing on the impact of development policy and finance at the international and national levels. The BMGF works with grantees that help developing countries to raise more tax revenue, and to do so equitably. They fund practical research and the development of data driven tools through institutions such as the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD), the Centre for Global Development (CGD) and the Commitment to Equity Institute (CEQ), and promote innovation in the tax and development field by funding International Budget Partnership to promote civil society groups working on tax. The BMGF co-funds the DRM Innovation Fund, which awards short-term funding to innovative projects to tackle persistent DRM related issues in developing countries in Africa on a demand driven basis. They are engaged in country in Nigeria and Ethiopia working with revenue authorities to directly improve tax administration.
Bill Gates recently spoke at the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development about the importance of mobilising domestic public resources to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals:
