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Explore our work with partners, globally and locally, to tackle social and economic injustice using a human rights lens.

Series of Advocacy Meetings Discuss Fair and Transparent Tax Reform in Nigeria

Series of Advocacy Meetings Discuss Fair and Transparent Tax Reform in Nigeria

Meetings in Abuja brought civil society into dialogue with key institutions on how Nigeria’s new tax laws can support fairer revenue mobilisation, stronger public accountability and better-funded public services. 

On 21 and 22 July 2026, GI-ESCR and civil society partners held a series of advocacy meetings in Abuja with institutions at the centre of Nigeria’s tax reform process. The mission engaged the bodies responsible for shaping fiscal policy, collecting federal revenue, supporting reform across Nigeria’s states, protecting taxpayers and strengthening accountability. 

The meetings introduced PayTax4Wetin?, a national campaign calling for the fair implementation of Nigeria’s new tax laws, the transparent and accountable use of public revenue, and stronger funding for essential public services. 

The Abuja engagements took place at a decisive stage in the reform process, as institutions begin implementing the new legal and administrative framework, including the establishment of the Nigeria Revenue Service and the Office of the Tax Ombud. The discussions helped identify what is already in place, what remains under development, and where civil society participation can strengthen equity, transparency and accountability. 

 

Federal Ministry of Finance: Building Lasting Channels for Public Participation 

 

On 21 July, GI-ESCR, Oxfam Nigeria and the Center for Inclusive Social Development (CISD), working in alignment with the Tax Justice and Governance Platform, met the Director of the Department of Technical Services at the Federal Ministry of Finance. 

As the institution responsible for fiscal policy, budget formulation and the overall coordination of tax reform, the Ministry plays a central role in determining how revenue is raised, allocated and connected to public spending. The delegation presented the campaign’s advocacy priorities and emphasised that the legitimacy of the reforms will depend on whether they produce visible improvements in people’s lives. 

The discussion focused on the need to create longer-term channels for public participation in the implementation of the new tax laws. Priorities included fully establishing the Office of the Tax Ombud with adequate funding, staffing and public accessibility; improving transparency around tax expenditures; and safeguarding key accountability commitments as the reforms move through future Finance Bill processes. 

The meeting opened a direct channel for continued engagement with the Ministry. One immediate opportunity is the preparation of a joint civil society memorandum for the Finance Bill 2026, through which organisations can consolidate recommendations on tax expenditure transparency, state-level accountability and the strengthening of the Tax Ombud. 

Participants also explored the possibility of an advisory mechanism with civil society participation linked to the Office of the Tax Ombud. Although still at an early stage, such a mechanism could provide a formal and sustained space for public input, helping ensure that taxpayer protection and accountability remain central to implementation. 

 

Nigeria Revenue Service: Making Federal Revenue Collection Easier to Track 

 

Later that day, the delegation held an informal exchange with the Deputy Director for Media and Public Relations at the Nigeria Revenue Service. The conversation provided valuable insight into how the Service’s new mandate to centralise federal revenue collection is expected to operate in practice. 

Bringing federal revenue collection under a clearer institutional framework creates important opportunities for transparency and accountability. It can make public revenue easier to track, clarify which institutions are legally authorised to collect taxes and fees, and reduce the scope for leakages, duplication or misuse. 

At the same time, the exchange underscored that state and local revenue systems remain more fragmented. This reinforces the campaign’s call for clear public communication about who is authorised to collect revenue, how much is collected and how those resources are used. Institutional consolidation will only strengthen public trust if it is matched by accessible information, effective oversight and visible accountability. 

 

Nigeria Governors’ Forum: State-Level Reform is Essential 

 

On 22 July, GI-ESCR and partners met members of the Economic Intelligence team of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, which represents the governors of Nigeria’s 36 states. The Forum provides technical support to states and the Federal Capital Territory and offers an important space for developing common approaches to subnational reform. 

The meeting reinforced the central importance of state-level implementation. Nigeria is a federal state in which subnational governments enjoy significant autonomy. States administer personal income taxation, including the taxation of high-net-worth individuals, receive a substantial share of public revenue and finance many of the services on which people rely, including health, education and social protection. 

As a result, state decisions shape how people experience taxation in their daily lives and whether increased revenue leads to better services. Advancing fairer and more transparent taxation therefore requires not only strong federal institutions, but also sustained reform, coordination and accountability across the states. 

The meeting established a direct relationship with the Forum’s office and identified several possible areas of cooperation. These include supporting state-level reform with research and data, sharing effective approaches that could be adapted across jurisdictions, and tailoring the PayTax4Wetin? campaign to subnational contexts with input from the Forum. 

 

Turning Tax Reform into a Stronger Social Contract 

 

The Abuja mission confirmed that the success of Nigeria’s tax reform will not be measured by new laws or higher revenue figures alone. It will be measured by whether people can see who pays, understand how much is collected, follow where the money goes and experience meaningful improvements in public services. 

The meetings created new channels for dialogue with the institutions responsible for implementation and highlighted concrete opportunities for civil society participation. GI-ESCR and its partners will continue working across federal and state institutions to help ensure that the new tax framework advances equity, protects taxpayers, strengthens transparency and delivers tangible benefits for people across Nigeria. 

 

The Abuja Mission 

 

The bilateral advocacy meetings and the PayTax4Wetin? policy dialogue formed complementary parts of the same Abuja mission. The meetings opened channels with institutions responsible for implementing the reforms, while the dialogue brought together public authorities, civil society organisations, trade unions, farmers and businesswomen to examine the implementation of the reforms and discuss their effects on people’s lives. Together, they connected institutional engagement with public participation and created a foundation for continued dialogue, collaboration and accountability. 

Across both parts of the mission, one message was consistent: the success of Nigeria’s tax reform will be measured by whether people can see who pays, understand how much is collected, follow where the money goes and experience meaningful improvements in public services. Building on the Abuja mission, GI-ESCR and its partners plan to follow up on the initial dialogues, advance the campaign’s advocacy asks and pursue the channels for collaboration raised by policymakers, while continuing to support an adequately resourced and independent Office of the Tax Ombud, advocate for permanent channels for civil society participation and press for transparent revenue collection and public spending that strengthens essential services. 

This work advances GI-ESCR’s strategic commitment to public services, tax justice and the fulfilment of economic, social and cultural rights within a care-centred society. It also reflects its theory of change across three interconnected areas: strengthening public narratives around taxation, building alliances across trade unions, farmers’ associations, women’s business networks, faith-based organisations and government revenue bodies and engaging institutional frameworks so that public institutions uphold their responsibilities under the social contract. 

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Climate and Environmental Justice

We have advanced rights-based and gender-transformative transition frameworks through research that centres the lived experiences of women and marginalised communities on the frontlines of extractive energy policies, promoting climate and energy frameworks attentive to the social and care-related impacts of transition pathways. We have developed a clear vision for a gender-just transition, firmly rooted in gender and human rights norms, establishing both the legal basis and the direction for the transformative changes our planet and societies urgently need. In particular, the ‘Guiding Principles for Gender Equality and Human Rights in the Energy Transition’, a collective effort built through online consultations, an in-person workshop and multiple rounds of revision with activists, practitioners and experts from around the world, outline a transformative vision for reshaping global energy systems through a human rights and gender equality lens.

Our work recognises that the climate emergency is both an existential threat and an opportunity to reimagine societies built on social, gender, economic and environmental justice. We ground our advocacy in feminist and intersectional principles, prioritising the agency and perspectives of communities in the Global South who have contributed the least to the climate emergency yet face its most devastating consequences. Central to our approach is the understanding that energy is not merely a commodity but a fundamental human right; essential for dignity, health, education, work and the realisation of countless other rights. We challenge approaches to the energy transition that risk replicating the harmful patterns of fossil fuel extraction and, instead, advocate for transformative policies that ensure human rights and gender equality as central to building climate-resilient societies rooted in dignity, justice and planetary well-being.

What's next?

We will continue to challenge approaches that treat energy transition as merely a technical shift, instead positioning it as an opportunity to reimagine economies and societies rooted in dignity for all, with particular attention to communities in the Global South who have contributed least to the climate emergency yet are most exposed to its worst effects.

We will connect community-level evidence and the lived experiences of those on the frontlines of extractive policies to national reform and global norm-setting, breaking down silos between human rights, gender, and climate movements, and advancing a shared vision that recognises just transitions as not only fundamental to achieving climate-resilient and sustainable societies, but as transformative pathways that advance social and gender equality, redistribute power and resources equitably, and ensure that energy systems serve the public good rather than profit.

We will mainstream rights-based and genderjust transition priorities in key multilateral spaces (particularly, within the Just Transition Work Programme and the to-be-developed Just Transition Mechanism, within the UNFCCC) to guarantee that just transitions are advanced at all levels.

We will also translate our work, through strategic advocacy, into at least two concrete policy wins, whether promoted, adopted, implemented, or scaled, in priority countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, or Kenya), ensuring these policies align with human rights standards, centre gender equality, and reflect the needs and views of affected communities.

We will build momentum for the progressive recognition of the right to sustainable energy to shift dominant narratives away from purely extractive solutions that sideline gendered impacts, community participation, and Global South perspectives.

Economic Justice and Climate Finance

Our work has transformed the global discussion on fiscal policy in a more just, emancipatory and sustainable direction. Our approach has combined both high-level, expert contributions within decisionmaking circles, with bold, impactful work on narrative change with the general public.

We have been instrumental in the inclusion of human rights as a guiding principle of the future United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, a multilateral instrument with the potential of raising approx. USD 492 billion per year in public revenues currently foregone to global tax abuse. In the process leading to the ‘Compromiso de Sevilla’ decided at FfD4, we proposed and succeeded in creating a specific human rights workstream within the Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism, which was critical to ensure that explicit commitments on the matter were included in the negotiating outcome. In a context of cutbacks in multilateral institutions, we have amplified the capacities of technical experts, providing rigorous technical support and leveraging our influence to ensure the enactments of groundbreaking standard-setting instruments, such as the 2025 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Statement on Fiscal Policy and Human Rights, and the first ex oficio hearing on the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on Fiscal and Economic Policies to Address Poverty and Structural Inequality, leading to an upcoming thematic resolution on the matter. We have also bridged the silos between multilateral tax discussions and climate finance debates, promoting ambitious financing commitments to increase international and domestic resource mobilisation during COP 28, 29 and 30.

At the regional level, our engagement with fiscal cooperation platforms such as the Platform for Fiscal Cooperation of Latin America and the Caribbean (PTLAC), where we are member of its Civil Society Consultative Council, and the African Anti-IFFs Policy Tracker, for which we participated in the pilot mission in Ivory Coast together with Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), have been critical in cementing a growing engagement between tax administrations and ministries of finance with international legal experts, exploring actionable and transformative initiatives, such as the taxation of high-net-worth individuals, beneficial ownership registries and corporate countryby-country reports, to be implemented at the international level.

At the local level, our interventions in fiscal reform debates in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Nigeria have contributed to shaping legislative outcomes in a more progressive, rights-compliant direction.

As for our leadership in narrative change, we have a measurable track record in delivering tailored, innovative campaigns which have decisively expanded economic justice constituencies by appealing to a broader tent. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we created the ‘Date Cuenta’ campaign, coordinating over 40 organisations across civil society to deliver plain language, innovative messaging connecting progressive fiscal reforms to the financing of health, education and social protection. ‘Date Cuenta’ generated over 55 original campaign messages that were tailored to the realities of seven priority countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Honduras) and disseminated in Spanish, Portuguese and English. In doing so, we convened more than 65 online co-creation workshops with partners, coordinating a unified communications strategy which combined digital outreach, press and media coverage, and collaboration with influencers. Ultimately, ‘Date Cuenta’ resulted in more than 60,000 interactions on social media, coverage in major regional and international media outlets, including El País, Deutsche Welle, Bloomberg and France 24, and the participation of at least 63 social media influencers through 58 dedicated publications. In collaboration with Fundación Gabo and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, we also organised a two-day workshop in Bogota with 20 journalists from 13 countries, building a regional network trained in a human rights-based approach to fiscal policy that has since generated published media coverage on outlets such as La Diaria, Ciper, El Diario Ar and Milenio. Through ‘Date Cuenta’ and our regional advocacy, we strengthened civil society engagement in key processes, including the Financing for Development track and FfD4, co-organised highlevel dialogues with states and civil society from Latin America and Africa.

What's next?

We will shape the UN Tax Convention and its Protocols so they embed human rights principles, and we will stay engaged through follow-up processes (including the expected Conference of the Parties) to support effective implementation. We will keep linking tax and climate finance so that new resources mobilised through fiscal cooperation are channelled to adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage, in line with UNFCCC commitments.

Public Services for Care Societies

We have translated participatory research into accountability and policy outcomes.

In Ivory Coast, our work with Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains and affected communities since 2023 exposed how privatisation and lack of accountability restrict access to quality healthcare. It contributed to the closure of 1,022 illegal private health centres, an executive instrument strengthening the regulation of private hospitals across the country, and the creation of a permanent complaints management committee in healthcare through a bylaw issued by the prefect of Gagnoa. Partners engaged through this process also advanced concrete improvements at facility level: members of the Gagnoa Midwives Association who took part in the participatory action research pooled resources to renovate the neonatal unit of the Regional Hospital, and the Director of the Gagnoa General Hospital launched an action plan to expand services and improve patient reception, with the facility receiving the award for best hospital in the country in 2025.

In Kenya, our research with the Mathare Education Taskforce documented the absence of public schools and the expansion of private provision, evidencing impacts on households and caregivers and strengthening demands for free, quality public education. This work contributed to stronger community agency and collective organisation, alongside ongoing strategies ranging from communications to litigation to secure a public school in the area, some involving GI-ESCR and others led independently.

Across Africa, this work is complemented by a multi-country study examining the human rights implications of austerity in education and health, including how regressive fiscal policies, rising debt burdens and persistent underinvestment undermine the financing and delivery of public services.

In Latin America, from 29 November to 2 December 2021, over a thousand representatives from over one hundred countries, from grassroots movements, advocacy, human rights, and development organisations, feminist movements, trade unions, and other civil society organisations, met in Santiago, Chile, and virtually, to discuss the critical role of public services for our future. Following the meeting, the Santiago Declaration on Public Services was adopted to demand universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society.

We are currently advancing work on care systems, linking public services and fiscal justice through integrated research, advocacy and communications, including a regional campaign framing care as a collective responsibility requiring sustained public investment.

What's next?

In Ivory Coast, we will evaluate and strengthen the complaints management committee and position it as a replicable model for other health facilities. In Kenya, we will support the Mathare community to co-design a model public school for Mabatini and Ngei wards, grounded in human rights standards. Building on our multi-country austerity study, we will drive national advocacy on financing for education and health: advancing reforms in Ghana; launching a fiscal policy and public services financing agenda in Kenya through the CESCR process and targeted coalition work; and, in Nigeria, using the new tax acts in force since 1 January 2026 to catalyse a national accountability campaign for adequately funded, quality public services. In Latin America, we will amplify locally led care pilots across 8 countries and turn lessons into influence—advancing care policies that strengthen care organisations, protect care workers’ rights, support unpaid caregivers, include disability and family networks, and redistribute care more equitably.