In the first phase of the project, Morocco, South Africa, Cameroon and Kenya were selected to participate in the research, analysis, and policy recommendations program, which significantly enhanced the evidence base for efficient and thoughtful redistributive fiscal policy that protects poor and vulnerable households from further impoverishment.  Each of these countries learned from, and in some cases incorporated, the successful programmatic experiences from the others. The work program that the AFD-CEQ partnership encompasses also promoted skills sharing and capacity building between countries.

Part of the second phase of this project focuses on Senegal, which is facing a number of important, sometimes contradictory challenges, likely to bring about lasting changes to the social contract and the redistribution of national income, such as: 

• the development of gas and oil deposits (and the collection of the associated tax revenues),
• the implementation of a just energy transition partnership (JETP), which at the same time calls for the decarbonisation of growth,
• the desired extension of social protection schemes (health, retirement) to accompany a demographic transition that is still underway,
• the dismantling of energy subsidies to finance more infrastructure and develop better-targeted subsidies for poor households. 

There is strong social demand for policies to reduce inequality, but this is taking place against a backdrop of regional instability, increased conflict, global inflation and global warming.

This analysis will be conducted in partnership with the Directorate General of Planning and Economic Policies of the Senegalese Ministry of Planning and the World Bank.
 

The development of the CEQ Assessments, which are the centerpiece of the AFD-CEQ Institute partnership, accomplish two major objectives simultaneously:

1. The implementation of CEQ Assessments builds an empirical evidence base (country by country) of the redistributive and poverty-reduction impact of fiscal policy broadly, as well as of individual fiscal elements (revenues or expenditures).
2. The implementation of CEQ Assessments together with local research teams completes a knowledge and skill transfer to researchers and policy officers who will remain close to the ongoing policy debate and policy-making bodies who benefit from having this information at their disposal.  

The AFD-CEQ Institute partnership therefore leaves in place the basic human infrastructure necessary for additional fiscal incidence analysis, including forward-looking policy simulation.

As part of the second phase of the project, the aim is for Senegal to master the CEQ tax incidence analysis tool and study a series of pro-poor reforms to reduce social and/or regional inequalities. 

The expected deliverable is a report quantifying the impact of 5 areas of reform (cost, effects, financing).

The CEQ Assessment is a comprehensive and rigorous tax and benefit incidence analysis which enables to have an active engagement with the policy community.It is designed to address the following four questions: 

1. How much income redistribution and poverty reduction are being accomplished through fiscal policy?
2. How equalizing and pro-poor are specifics taxes and government spending?
3. How effective are taxes and government spending in reducing inequality and poverty?
4. What is the impact of fiscal reforms that change the size and/or progressivity of a particular tax or benefit?

In order to address these questions, experts from the CEQ working along with AFD researchers and local researchers teams implemented the CEQ methodology in Morocco, South Africa, Cameroon and Kenya, and will do so in Senegal.

Once done, the objective is to mainstream the use of CEQ Assessments:

• By reaching out to the policy community through partnerships and policy forums;
• By disseminating findings through an active communication and advocacy program, undertaken in conjunction with key partners in the research, philanthropic and social activist communities.

You can find below the various publications related to this research project.

According to the official Jordanian population census, there were an estimated 1.2 million Syrian refugees in the country as of November 2015. This figure corresponds to between 10% and 12% of the population. Approximately 660,000 of them are registered as “asylum seekers” by the UNHCR. But their number has been decreasing since 2015, probably because of migration, especially back to their home country.

The percentage of Syrian refugees who do not wish to live permanently in the three UN-run refugee camps in northern Jordan surpasses 90%. This is why they are settling in cities or the nearby rural areas, where they rent apartments and often live in unsuitable housing. Their main motivation for doing so is access to jobs.

This population influx to the cities has an impact on housing, services, activities, income, and the distribution of resources among urban residents. It can heighten the inequalities among the people living in Jordan, in particular between Jordanians and foreigners (1.7 million foreigners live in Jordan).

The first part of the study focuses on the dynamics of economic inequality between households in Amman and Irbid, using the 2010 and 2016 Jordan Labor Market Panel Survey (JLMPS) and the 2013 and 2016 Household Expenditure and Income Survey (HEIS).

The second part of the study examines housing inequality among residents of Amman and Irbid. This section looks at both housing as a cost (household expenditures) and housing as a source of income (renting, selling, etc.).

Many inequality indicators will be used: the Gini coefficient as well as the  Atkinson index and the P90/P10 ratio, for example.

The data will come from:

• studies from 2010 and 2016 on the Jordanian labor market (Jordan Labor Market Panel Surveys);
• 2004 and 2015 population censuses (Jordanian Department of Statistics);
• data on household incomes and expenditures (Household Expenditure and Income Surveys, HEIS), 2013 and 2016;
• UNDP data on socio-economic inequalities in Jordan; and
• UNHCR data.

The research team is made up of two economists, one geographer, and one sociologist on the Jordanian side, and one economist and one urban planner on the AFD side.

• Irène Salenson, Research Officer, AFD
• Abdel Baset Athamneh, Head, Department of Economics, Yarmouk University