‘Best paper’ award at ATRN conference

September 16, 2015

Wilson Pritchard, Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto’s department of Political Science, along with Dr. Samuel Jibao and University of Toronto Political Science student Vanessa van den Boogaard, have won the best paper award at the recent inaugural ‘African Tax Research Network’ (ATRN) conference.

The award for the paper, entitled ‘Taxation and Post-Conflict State Building: Exploring Informal Taxation and its Implications in Sierra Leone’, is important for many reasons according to Professor Pritchard. “Over the past five years the research centre that I run – the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD) – has been working to strengthen tax research in Africa, led by African researchers, while building stronger global partnerships. The launch of the African Tax Research Network marks a major step forward in that effort. Our paper is a reflection of the broader goal – a piece of innovative research that resulted from partnering with Dr. Samuel Jibao, former Deputy Director of research at Sierra Leone’s National Revenue Authority. It was a great honour to receive the award but, more importantly, it marks a step toward our broader goal of supporting more of these types of research partnerships.”

Held in Cape Town, South Africa, the conference was convened by ‘The African Tax Administration Forum’ (ATAF) and the ATRN and attracted over 130 delegates from across 25 countries. The theme of the conference was ‘Contemporary Tax Challenges in Africa’.

Wilson Prichard is jointly appointed to the Department of Political Science and the Munk School of Global Affairs and is a Research Director at the International Centre for Tax and Development. His broad research focus is on international development, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. His book ‘Taxation, Responsiveness and Accountability in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Dynamics of Tax Bargaining’ has just been published.