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Africa, home to the youngest and fastest growing population globally, has faced shrinking fiscal space, capital flight, and uneven access to international financial markets. For African youth, who not only represent over 70% of the continent’s population but also the continent’s potential drivers of innovation and growth, these challenges translate into restricted opportunities, heightened vulnerabilities, and a fragile future.
Lurit Yugusuk, speaking for the Youth for Tax Justice Network, reminded the room that harmful tax practices don’t just affect balance sheets, they affect people.“Harmful tax practices erode national tax bases, weakening the capacity to finance education, healthcare, and infrastructure that children and youth depend on.” She called for expanding Article 8 beyond multinational enterprises to include high-net-worth individuals, private investment vehicles, and professional enablers. She also pushed for mandatory public disclosure of tax incentives and public country-by-country reporting, emphasizing that “secrecy has been the lifeblood of harmful tax practices.”
For young people across Africa and the world, these negotiations represent more than just policy debates. They offer an unprecedented opportunity to shape an economic future focused on intergenerational equity, where every resource counts, and where fiscal justice becomes a tool for equality, innovation, and opportunity.
The Third Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3) focused on advancing substantive negotiations on the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation and the Protocol on Prevention and Resolution of Tax Disputes. The programme of work was structured across two weeks, combining formal, informal, and closed meetings.
Youth for Tax Justice Network (YTJN) proposes the Pan African Creative Arts Youth Competition. This initiative seeks to harness the creativity of African youth to foster innovative ideas and grassroots awareness around critical economic governance topics, including sovereign debt, the AfCFTA, climate finance, asset recovery, and the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.
In an era marked by deepening inequalities and shifting global financial systems, the question of who decides how resources are raised, shared, and governed has never been more urgent. Taxation, which has been long perceived as a technical issue reserved for experts and state negotiators, is now at the heart of global justice debates. As nations move toward a new United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, the need to ensure inclusivity, fairness, intergenerational equity and legitimacy within this process is critical.
At this critical juncture, the Youth Tax Justice Network (YTJN) stands at the forefront of redefining participation and representation in fiscal processes and fiscourse by championing the voices, priorities, and aspirations of young people across the Global South and beyond. We are backed by the belief and recognition that youth are not merely future taxpayers, but they are present stakeholders, who continue to find ways of organizing, researching, and advocating for a tax system that delivers equity, transparency, and sustainability.