Increasing Revenue for Municipalities: Lessons from Global Communities’ IncluCity Program in Ghana

Increasing Revenue for Municipalities: Lessons from Global Communities’ IncluCity Program in Ghana

Building on previous efforts by the Government of Ghana, the World Bank and many other international donors, the Global Communities’ IncluCity program in Ghana, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, helped two municipal governments increase their internally-generated revenue, fiscal autonomy and the ability to respond to citizen’s expressed needs. This paper summarizes the recent success in Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi where a GIS property tax and business fee module and street addressing interventions increased locally generated revenue. Analytical capacity for municipal governments to evaluate their revenue programs and policies, especially with respect to poor communities must now be developed to avoid unanticipated impacts on the poor.
Read the full paper here.