





Fiscal discipline reduces unsustainable debt levels, freeing resources for investments in sectors like agriculture, tech, and green industries, which are critical for youth employment.
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As the Harare Declaration states, the African youth bulge as an engine for the continent’s structural transformation agenda is at risk of being a missed opportunity due to being saddled with accumulated debt, while potentially being locked out of accessing finance that is desperately needed to invest in them, and making them carry the burden of a mortgaged future. Instead of investing in our potential, governments are forced to divert billions to creditors, too often to lenders who prioritise profit over people. This is not only an economic imbalance; it is a generational betrayal. We thus demand debt and tax justice that put people and the planet first.
Delegates at the 3rd Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC3) continued working toward the development of a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. Friday’s discussions focused on Article 11 on capacity-building and technical assistance, the digitalization of tax administration, sustainability and funding, roles of the Secretariat and COP, and updates from Workstream II on cross-border services.
The conversation then drifted on questions on how to handle disputes in the absence of tax treaties. For developing countries, the answer was simple … “No treaty, no dispute-resolution mechanism.” For them, the Protocol should not create new legal bases.
But across the room, private sector voices insisted that disputes do not wait for treaties; businesses struggle with uncertainty, and governments lose revenue. They pressed for innovations, with some calling for strengthening MAP, others calling for coordinated unilateral Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs), and others for the view that temporary unilateral relief would prevent double taxation.