 So, let's move on to our next presenter, Alexander Pick from the OECD, who leads the Tax Data and Statistical Analysis Unit at the OECD's Centre for Tax Policy and is responsible for the Revenue Statistics Initiative, which through my own involvement via WIDER's Government Revenue Data Set project I've used very heavily, so it's great to hear from Alexander. Good afternoon. I'd like to start by thanking everyone, especially the organisers. It is wonderful to be at this event, which has been fascinating up until this point. I really hope that that doesn't change for everyone now. I should also clarify that, as was just said, I am at the OECD, but I work on tax data and statistical analysis, not on the two pillars. So, if you're waiting for any reason, I'll be in the corridor after the event rather than for this occasion now. So, thank you very much. This is an opportunity to talk through the Global Revenue Statistics Initiative, and I will do so once I figure out the buttons. Now, here we are. My presentation has four sections. First of all, just to explain what the Global Revenue Statistics Initiative is. I would shorten that to GRS each time, but then it'll be a bit confusing with the UNU wider, so I'm going to keep on, and I've asked for your forbearance, keep on referring to it as the Global Revenue Statistics Initiative, or I might shorten it to RedStats. Then I'm going to talk about the process of data harmonisation and the extent to which that relies on dialogue between the OECD, partner countries, and also regional organisations and donors that are involved. And then I think what's perhaps the most important aspect for this session, which is, I think, very well titled, How You Move from Good Quality Data to Domestic Resource Mobilisation, and finally some headline results, which I think not only will I hope show the applicability of this data, but also bring much needed variety to what is otherwise a very text-based presentation, so apologies for that. So, to start with the first question, what is the Global Revenue Statistics Initiative? Well, it is a means of providing harmonised text revenue data that is comparative across more than 120 by the end of the year, hopefully 130 countries, all according to a common classification, and I'll come back to why that's important in due course. Each year we produce four annual publications that show this revenues, this harmonised data for different regions. This is the African report and one lucky winner can walk away with one of these. We also produce reports for Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and of course the OECD, which is where it all began. It is intended as a key input for tax policy makers and administrators and also researchers, I should add very much for this audience, that provides information on the level of tax revenues, the structure of tax revenues, and indeed for some countries, non-tax revenues, as well as changes in these revenues over time. As well as that, it is also a tool for capacity development and a platform for communities of practice and regional dialogue, which often but not always takes the form of technical workshops. We are aligned to SDG 17 and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, and just to return to the SDG 17, I think we contribute, we try in a variety of ways. Of course there's the contribution to domestic resource mobilisation monitoring. We also would like to think we contribute to the DRM agenda itself and also develop statistical capacity. The next slide as well I think picks up on another SDG 17 point, which is the extent to which it is an initiative that is based on partnerships. So for OECD countries alone, obviously it's a fairly OECD-based, but once we are working with developing countries, you see the quantum of partnerships that are involved and indeed required in producing harmonised revenue data, but also in ensuring that the revenue statistics initiative meets regional demand and meets the demand of countries in that region. I hope you don't mind it. I'll take this opportunity to thank Norad, Peter over there, but also other people who are the donors that contribute to the initiative. As you see, there are a lot of them and this is, I think, will be explained by the intensity of the production process. Just to draw your attention, for example, so for the Africa publication we work with the African Union Commission, both on the economic development side, but also Stetafrique, which is two very important role players, as well as the African Tax Administration Forum, which is an increasingly vocal and important part of the conversation representing African voices in international tax negotiations. So we are not only grateful, but we strongly rely on these partnerships. Similarly for Latin America, we work closely with the UN, with the UN SEPAL and other organisations and Asian Development Bank, but also Pacific Island organisations for the Asia-Pacific publication. So to return to the key issue, the key value addition of the Global Revenue Statistics Initiative is this ability to harmonise tax revenues at a very granular level over a sustained period of time for all the participating countries. And we're talking about countries, as you'll see, whose tax-to-GDP ratio ranges from anything from 6% to north of 40%. So the key is not necessarily whether a country has a very well-developed tax system. Really we can work with anyone so long as they're able to provide us with the data starting with a high level, but we can work together to, over time, building on a relationship that evolves and trust that deepens to provide increasingly high quality data. So the value of the OECD classification, as contained in the Interpretative Guide, it provides a set of principles to define and classify taxes, as well as instruments that should not be treated as taxes. And this ensures consistency across countries. Moreover, the OECD classification is not set in stone. It is constantly updated. We work with statisticians across 120-plus countries to understand what are the trends, what are new taxes emerging, and this is not a quiet space at the moment. And so this process has been continuing since the 1970s, and each year we update the Interpretative Guide to make sure it remains relevant to the global international tax space. It's also, and this is very important, it's entirely consistent with other well-known statistical classifications such as the System of National Accounts 2008, the European System of Accounts, and the IMF Government Finance Statistics Manual, 2014, which in turn means that it is possible to map the OECD classification and the revenues allocated for each of the countries to these other classifications, which we hope is not only helpful for researchers, but actually for the countries themselves, as they are sometimes required to report on various, through different different processes. And it should be noted that other statistical publications also draw on revenue statistics data from time to time. I think a key point I'd like to make in this presentation is that harmonization is a two-way street and slightly glibly, I've called it a busy two-way street, perhaps influenced by too much time in Paris. This is, I think, the idea that the OECD sits in Paris, collects data and then churns it out on its databases, couldn't really be further from the truth. For all of the countries that are covered, there is a strong relationship that has is constantly renewed on an annual basis because of the annual publication, the annual data submission process requires a back and forth. And not only that, but also when countries join the initiative, then it's an extraordinarily intense period of discussions around how to classify such and such attacks, but also just issues around possible gaps in data, possible issues, okay, so you can provide central government, but also what about local government? These kind of conversations are not only useful in terms of the data that they generate, but actually they allow administrators, our focal points in countries, they give a reason, a justification for reaching out to the Social Security Fund or to local governments and saying we have this mandate to provide data at the OECD, can you actually give us this because we haven't seen it before, and this is often the case with customs data as well, and in so doing it actually has been shown in a number of countries to facilitate their own data sharing across government, which I think is a valuable thing in and of itself. So this dialogue has two main purposes. The first is to match national tax categories to the OECD classification, but also as I've said, to obtain complete information on revenues for different categories and different levels of government over time. And we start from the bottom up, which means that we've got the greatest chance of ensuring granularity and rather than just taking a top-down approach. As a result of this work undertaken with the partner countries, we are able to produce data that in the end can be, is strictly comparable with all the other countries. And in turn, this forms the basis of key indicators on the level and structure of tax and non-tax revenues, not only across countries, but also it allows us to generate regional averages, and I'll come to that back to that in a second. I should just say, so I haven't mentioned it previously, is to join revenue statistics, we need a buy-in, sort of a signed response from a Minister of Finance or perhaps a Commissioner General of a Tax Administration, and that mandate in itself is important for the focal points to get the information that they need. Moreover, our regional partners are often extremely helpful, not only in making the required connections, but also validating and double-checking the data. And finally, the point very important to make is that we don't publish any data until a country has had the final opportunity. They validate whatever goes online, so nothing will go up or be published that hasn't got the government say so, green light. So how does this actually contribute to domestic resource mobilization? Well, I would sort of break this down into two questions. First of all, it's a basis, this high quality and harmonized revenue data are a basis for policy analysis. They allow policy makers to answer fundamental questions to understand the potential for enhancing DRM in their country. So what is the level and structure of tax revenues in my country? How do these compare to other countries? And how have revenues evolved after tax reforms or following shocks, for example? The revenue statistics data can also be used to produce more complex indicators to assess specific aspects of a country's tax system such as the effectiveness of its VAT. We have also developed specific tools and online training to promote data analysis and these are all available publicly free of charge as is all the rest of the information that we produce. Each year and for each report we produce special features on priority issues for DRM, often making use of the harmonized data we produce and often written in coordination with our partners which helps to ensure their relevance and also the voices of our partners are well heard through the initiative. So for example, we used revenue statistics in Africa data to analyze the possible impact of the AFCFTA on trade tax revenues or another to harmonize the quantification of debt servicing costs as a percentage of total revenue. So these I think are important questions that harmonized data allows us to have a conversation on equally for revenue statistics in Latin America and in the Caribbean. We looked at tax expenditures this year so which I'm glad was timely. But at the same time it's not just about policy analysis it's also a platform for a tool for capacity development and a platform for knowledge sharing. I think this is something we are very keen to emphasize. It's an integral part of the initiative not only for capacity development for countries but also for regional organizations themselves and we're thinking not only about analytical capacity to use data to inform tax policy at a national or a regional scale but also statistical capacity for producing comparable and detailed revenue data. Annual data collection as I said involves this transfer of knowledge and skills between countries, OECD and partner organizations and that's sort of an ecosystem whereby this knowledge can be shared in often through these annual technical workshops which we are increasingly as coverage grows increasingly fundamental for communities of practice around the production and use of high quality revenue data and knowledge sharing on common challenges emerging and emerging issues as well as successes and failures. As I said because the initiative has expanded so to have these communities of practice. So that allows me and I think I have three minutes for some high-level results perfect. So this is slightly old data but we don't have a complete set of data for 2021 and I should say that we have a the intensity of the data gathering process means that we do have a bit of a lag in our data so by the time we publish this report for 2023 this will mean that we have a complete set of data for 2021 which isn't necessarily ideal for that immediate policy response but at the same time we've looked into getting it quicker and it's you know given the capacity constraints it's not always possible. So there's a trade-off there in any case for 2020 this is as you all know the year of the COVID shock and we see the range of tax to GDP ratios across the different regions I think this is a fairly explanatory but it's a nice wheel and then we also see and this is on one hand a staggeringly boring slide but we've heard a lot about how tax revenues stagnated across 2020 and here you are it's beautifully just very straight lines with a bit of a dip in 2020 but this is making use of you know extremely to get that very boring graph there's millions of data points to go in there so you know it's it's nice that it can be simplified to this level and in the this year's publications we see we will see how Latin America takes back up Africa actually probably is going to a flat line and and OECD somehow kept going up a bit Asia-Pacific because we only have an average going back to 2018 we haven't shown the longer time frame but we could include that as well and we will do in in the future and finally this is a nice slide because it shows the importance of different tax types in different regions so again the the tax mix is hugely important for tax policy makers the headline message here because I don't have much time is look at the OECD average look how different its tax structure is with a much greater role played by direct taxes income tax social social security contributions than in developing countries where taxes on goods and services are much more prominent interesting also that the Africa average and the Asia-Pacific average are very similar whereas the lack average is slightly different because social security contributions are more important PIT levels very low so this are some links which you know I don't is it worth putting these up I never know I mean if you can find this slide later you will be able to click on these links for now I think this is almost entirely unhelpful but it does remind you of my name and and that's me and this is just a nice picture because in May of this year we were able to have our revenue statistics in Africa workshop in person for the first time since pre-covid and I tell you it's um it's a wonderful experience to be able to bring well tax policy makers and statisticians from 30 different countries into the same place to hear about their experiences to learn and it's always a wonderful experience I think that sort of epitomizes the the value addition of global revenue statistics thank you very much for my time I'm sorry for talking so quickly