Publications
Our publications reflect the Institute’s commitment to timely, high-quality, and independent research that provides relevant impact-driven insights in the domains of policy-making and range of issues of particular interest to Africa – disseminated in a variety of forms: as IPRA books, Research Papers, Working Papers, Policy Briefs, and African Dialogue. These, and other scholarly writings all meet our high standards of intellectual rigor and integrity.
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the opportunities and challenges facing Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) engaged in informal cross-border trade (ICBT) at three strategic border locations: Cyanika (Rwanda-Uganda), Mpondwe (DRC-Uganda), and Vvura (DRC-Uganda)…
Milton Ayoki
After the ECOWAS-backed abolition of Nigeria’s premium-motor-spirit (PMS) subsidy in June 2023, the pump-price gap between Nigeria and Niger widened overnight from 0.23 to 0.71 USD litre−1….
By Milton Ayoki
Following the December 2023 withdrawal of the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), mineral flows across the Rwanda-Congo border have undergone significant transformation….
Milton Ayoki
Recent proposals for a “two-tiered” or “dual-track” trade system—combining a conventional MFN regime with a second tier of deeper, preferential disciplines for coalitions of “willing” members—are marketed as pragmatic responses to WTO gridlock and geoeconomic rivalry….
Milton Ayoki
Despite decades of economic isolation, Myanmar, has over the past few years emerged as one of the most progressive economies in South East Asia with reasonably low level of unemployment and poverty….
Milton Ayoki
This paper evaluates the recent trajectory and structure of trade performance across East Africa, focusing on the East African Community (EAC) and its broader neighbourhood. Using 2023–2024 trade statistics, customs data, and regional integration indicators…
Milton Ayoki
Recent proposals for a “two-tiered” or “dual-track” trade system—typically combining a conventional MFN regime with a second tier of deeper, preferential disciplines for coalitions of “willing” members—are often marketed as a pragmatic response to gridlock in the WTO…
Trade and Economy-Wide Effects of the East African Enlargement, IPRA Working Paper 162, January 2024
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the trade and economy-wide effects of the East African Community’s (EAC) 2022 enlargement, which formally admitted the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan. Using a multi-region computable general equilibrium model calibrated…
Milton Ayoki
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) promises to create the world’s largest single market, yet fragmented border-agency procedures remain a major bottleneck, inflating time and cost to trade across the continent. Drawing on implementation experience from…
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the causal effect of innovation on firm-level export performance in Uganda using World Bank Enterprise Survey and Innovation Survey data (n=762). To address endogeneity between innovation and export decisions…
By Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the determinants and impact of intra-regional trade within the three largest African trade blocs—the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC)…
Milton Ayoki
Global negotiations on trade-related aspects of electronic commerce (e-commerce) are accelerating under the aegis of the WTO’s Joint Initiative on E-Commerce (JSI), plurilateral accords and mega-regional trade agreements. Yet the distributional consequences of emerging…
Milton Ayoki
This paper offers a critical reflection on the potential of solidarity-based and collective South-South cooperation to serve as an alternative paradigm for “building back better” in the aftermath of cascading global crises. Departing from dominant recovery frameworks…
How is Brexit impacting the EU-Africa trade? IPRA Working Paper 146, July, 2022
Milton Ayoki
This paper quantifies how the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union has reshaped EU-Africa trade. Using a panel of African exports to the EU-27 and the UK (2002-2021) and a difference-in-difference design, we show that Brexit has simultaneously depressed Africa’s…
This paper examines strategies for safeguarding a development-oriented package of flexibilities and concessions within the ongoing
World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on trade in services (TiSA/GATS).
Milton Ayoki
This paper quantifies how the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union has reshaped EU-Africa trade. Using a panel of
African exports to the EU-27 and the UK (2002-2021) and a difference-in-difference design,…
Milton Ayoki
This paper offers a preliminary quantitative and qualitative assessment of how the market-access reforms currently tabled under the WTO Doha Round could reshape agricultural trade opportunities for Least-Developed Countries (LDCs). Using a stylised tiered-formula …
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates how Bugishu specialty coffee has evolved from a locally consumed crop into a lucrative export niche within Uganda’s broader agricultural economy. Drawing on recent market data, production statistics, and qualitative field evidence…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates, for the first time at the COMESA-wide level, the patterns and determinants of merchandise exports from all twenty-one COMESA member states to the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies. Using a panel data set for 2013-2023 and…
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines Uganda’s export performance during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on sectoral resilience, trade route adaptations, and the broader economic implications. Using a mix of macroeconomic modeling, customs data, and sector-specific case studies…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates how the COVID-19 shock reshaped Uganda’s trade-policy stance and outcomes. Merging monthly customs micro-data from the Uganda Revenue Authority (2019-2022) with new hand-collected indicators of pandemic-era policy interventions…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the role of cotton in the economic development and trade strategies of the African Cotton-Four (C-4): Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali. Using panel data from 1990-2022 and an approach that combines gravity modelling of trade flows with qualitative analysis…
By Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the performance of African merchandise and services exports to Asia over 2000-2023, a period marked by Asia’s rapid ascent as both a final demand hub and a pivotal node in global value chains. Using a harmonised panel data set that covers 49 African economies…
Milton Ayoki
Despite the rapid growth of Asian import demand, African firms remain strikingly under-represented in Asian markets: the continent supplies less than 2 % of Asia’s total merchandise imports and only 5 % of its agro-processing and light-manufacturing needs. This paper identifies…
Milton Ayoki
Africa’s continental strategy on geographical indications (GIs) is moving from legal transplantation to institutional experimentation. Drawing on policy documents, registers and the first wave of African case studies (Argane, Rooibos, Café Ziama-Macenta, Cabrito de Tete)…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates how Africa’s clothing and textile trade has evolved since the expiry of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quota system on 1 January 2005, with a particular focus on the role of China within global supply chains. Using newly-compiled trade data …
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s coffee sector contributes over 20 % of national export earnings and employs more than 1.5 million smallholder households, yet it remains largely dominated by low-priced, unbranded beans. This paper investigates whether stronger Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates employment responses to trade liberalisation in a developing economy, Myanmar. Using data from the 2014 Census and the 2017, labour force survey and previous surveys contained in Myanmar Statistical Yearbook, 2017, we find that trade liberalization did…
Milton Ayoki
The Doha Development Agenda (DDA), launched by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, promised to recalibrate global trade rules in favor of developing nations, yet remains unfinished after two decades of negotiations. This paper critically reflects on the structural…
Milton Ayoki
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Services Agenda stands at a pivotal juncture as Phase-II protocols on investment, intellectual-property rights and competition policy enter the ratification phase and negotiators prepare to launch Phase-III e-commerce talks….
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the development and impact of single-window (SW) platforms in East Africa as a critical instrument for trade facilitation and regional integration. Anchored in the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement and operationalised through….
Milton Ayoki
Between 1995 and 2019 the East African Community (EAC) implemented one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s most ambitious customs-reform agendas, anchored in the 2005 Customs Union and the 2010 Common Market Protocol. Drawing on a new panel dataset of statutory tariff schedules….
Milton Ayoki
This paper presents the first systematic, high-frequency evidence on how Anglo-African merchandise and services exports adjusted during the transitory phase of Brexit (January 2017–December 2020). Merging UN-Comtrade, IMF DOTS and f.o.b. shipping‐scanner data for 19 African economies …
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates whether trade facilitation efforts in East Africa have paradoxically “widened borders” by increasing the effective distance between trading partners despite physical integration. Using a difference-in-differences design that exploits staggered…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates how external trade shocks transmit into household-level income volatility in Uganda, a low-income economy heavily dependent on cash-crop exports. Merging highly-disaggregated customs data on coffee, cocoa, tea and tobacco shipments with five waves of the Uganda National Panel Survey…
Milton Ayoki
For centuries, Europe has been an important market for products from Sub-Saharan Africa. In the turn of the twenty-first century, the boundary of the trade geography dramatically changed, with African products increasing going to the Gulf region. This provides evidence on the nature and evolution of trade between Uganda…
Milton Ayoki
The East African Community (EAC) has invested heavily in One-Stop Border Posts (OSBPs) with the explicit goal of lowering trade costs and accelerating regional integration. Exploiting newly released micro-data from the EAC’s 2023 OSBP Performance Measurement Tool and primary …
Milton Ayoki
This paper provides a critical evaluation of Special and Differential Treatment (S&D) proposals arising from the Doha Round negotiations, categorizing them as “good” (clearly development-enhancing), “bad” (counterproductive to multilateral trade principles), or “ambiguous” (context-dependent with mixed effects)…
Milton Ayoki
This report was prepared as part of the process to develop the Kagera Cooperative Framework in the four riparian countries of Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The work was commissioned in 2007, by the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI)….
Milton Ayoki
This paper explores how special provisions for developing countries in the multilateral trading system have continued to evolve over time. An appreciation of the evolution of provisions designed specifically for developing countries in the multilateral trading system…
Milton Ayoki
The growing evidence of market failure, uncertainties in international cooperation and complexities of the problems of global inequalities has
made special and differential treatment of developing countries (S&DT) not only increasingly necessary, but also increasingly difficult. In this
paper, we examine the S&DT measures in the WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation (TFA)…
Milton Ayoki
This paper assessed the effectiveness of regional agreements (RTAs) in tackling many of the hurdles that potentially impede access to and
presence in services markets. From the approaches and disciplines within the services trade frameworks and framework of the GATS, most
major RTAs are at the same pace with GATS…
Milton Ayoki
This paper offers an assessment of the status of services trade in Africa. It addresses three policy questions: how Africa has fared in trade in
services trade over the past decade relative to other regions of the world; who the key players and partners are; and the sectors shaping Africa’s
services trade. Africa’s trade in commercial services…
Milton Ayoki
The focus on development adopted at the WTO’s Doha Ministerial Meeting in 2001 has changed the architecture of multilateral trade
negotiations, with development issues assuming a central position in the WTO negotiation spaces and agreements. In this paper, we assess the
extent to which the concerns of…
Milton Ayoki
This paper analyses exports of textiles and clothing (T&C) from Sub-Saharan African countries in the decade leading to and after a phase out of
the Agreement on Textile and Clothing (ATC) (Multi-fibre Agreement restrictions on T&C export)—from 1990s to 2016 using WTO and World
Bank data sets…
Milton Ayoki
This paper quantifies the gains that landlocked, transit developing countries and small states have already reaped from trade-facilitation reforms, using East Africa as a real-time laboratory. Blending a newly assembled panel of shipment-level data (2010-2023)…
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the textile and clothing (T&C) industry in Lesotho to ascertain the initial effects of the end of quotas and other restrictions
on global trade in textile and clothing. Results show a dramatic decline in Lesotho’s T&C exports, both in value terms and export share in major
markets in industrialised countries: the U.S…
Milton Ayoki
“Feeling the Elephant’s Weight” interrogates the emerging spatial and scalar re-ordering of African trade after the Tripartite Free
Trade Area (TFTA) came into force in 2024. Combining new firm-to-firm transaction data with satellite-derived freight flows and…
Milton Ayoki
This paper maps and analyses trade patterns that have emerged within the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite single market—an
integration zone that links 29 African economies through overlapping Free Trade Areas. Using newly-released customs data (2018-
2023)…
Milton Ayoki
Despite enjoying duty-free and quota-free access to the EU market under the “Everything But Arms” (EBA) initiative, Uganda’s
export performance remains constrained by non-tariff barriers (NTBs) that disproportionately affect high-value agro-food products
such…
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the approaches to liberalization of trade in services adopted within existing PTAs as compared to prevailing GATS’
commitments. The paper aims to gain a better understanding of whether and how the difficult issues associated with services trade and investment…
Milton Ayoki
This paper maps the economic, legal, and political contours of a potential tripartite Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that would merge the 21-member Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the 7-member East African Community (EAC), and the 16-member…
Milton Ayoki
The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA)—formally established in 2015 and operational since July 2024—unites the Common Market
for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), and Southern African Development Community (SADC)
into…
Milton Ayoki
This paper tests whether the theory of comparative advantage can account for Uganda’s observed export performance across products and destinations. Using highly-disaggregated, HS-6 digit trade data from UN-COMTRADE (2001-2022) and the Revealed Comparative Advantage…
Milton Ayoki
Exports play an important role in Uganda’s economy, influencing the level of economic growth, employment and the Balance of Payments.
Uganda has initiated several trade policy reforms aimed at promoting the export sector. However, Uganda’s share in total world exports is still
very low….
Milton Ayoki
One of the major development challenges facing Africa has been the small and fragmented economies with low incomes and low level of intra-
regional exports. In an effort to promote intra-regional exports, Africa has witnessed renewed momentum for regional integration. This study
examines….
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the textile and clothing (T&C) industry in Swaziland to ascertain the initial effects of the end of quotas and other restrictions
on global trade in textile and clothing. Results show a dramatic decline in Swazi’s T&C exports, both in value terms and export share in major….
Milton Ayoki
A key goal of the COMESA Treaty (1993) was to stimulate sustainable economic growth in the region through increased trade between member
states. On the basis of a 1980–2010 annual panel dataset, we examine the contribution of COMESA integration to economic growth in the region
using instrumental….
Milton Ayoki
This paper uses a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework and benchmark data from Uganda national household survey to estimate
the impact of trade liberalisation on poverty in Uganda. Three simulations are performed: removal of EAC tariffs, removal of non-EAC COMESA
tariffs….
Milton Ayoki
This paper compares the gains from multilateral and regional trade liberalization in context of poverty reduction—whether multilateral
liberalisation can be more successful in reducing poverty in Uganda than regionalism. Using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework
and….
Milton Ayoki
This paper documents the trade patterns and trade policy in the rice sector in the East African Community (EAC) partner states, with particular
reference to Uganda. Over 40 percent of intra-regional rice trade is informal trade, in part because cross-border taxes and barriers other than
duty…
Milton Ayoki
This paper provides the first systematic empirical assessment of how regulatory convergence within the COMESA–EAC–SADC
Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) affects trade flows among the 29 Member/Partner States. Using a newly constructed dataset that
maps..
Milton Ayoki
We study quid pro quo trade negotiations—i.e., agreements in which each country simultaneously concedes on one issue in
exchange for a reciprocal concession on another—within the canonical Nash bargaining framework. Departing from the standard “single-issue”..
Milton Ayoki
This paper develops a theory of “quid pro quo” trade preferences in which governments use preferential market access as payment for non-trade objectives rather than as instruments of traditional commercial policy. Using a new panel data set that links tariff preferences…
Milton Ayoki
This paper explores the strategic pursuit of a “development package” within the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on
trade in services. Situating the current GATS round against the backdrop of stalled multilateral talks and proliferating preferential deals,…
Milton Ayoki
South-South cooperation has emerged as a pivotal framework for fostering mutual development among nations of the Global South.
This paper examines how South-South relations can enhance the East African Community’s (EAC) people-to-people cooperation
agenda…
Milton Ayoki
This paper analyses the role of regional trade agreements in fostering regional integration in Africa – using information from relevant treaties
and protocols, existing literature on regionalism in Africa, as well as past studies, and the COMTRADE database. The thesis found similarity in the
nature…
Milton Ayoki
This paper assesses the trajectory of WTO disciplines on domestic support in the aftermath of the stalled Doha Round, with special
attention to the so-called “green box.” Combining legal-text analysis, economic modelling and a review of recent negotiating proposals…
Milton Ayoki
Since the early 1990s, Anglophone African countries have embarked on a series of customs administration reforms and
modernization initiatives aimed at enhancing revenue collection, trade facilitation, and supply-chain security. Drawing on evidence
from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria,…
Milton Ayoki
The aim of the study was to identify the major cross-border trade corridors (CBTCs) for agricultural products in the Nile Basin, and (among
others) propose action to reduce trade barriers along the selected CBTC. Nine border areas were visited…
Milton Ayoki
Despite the East African Community’s (EAC) legal commitment to eliminate all non-tariff barriers (NTBs) under Article 13 of the
Customs Union Protocol, such measures remain widespread and structurally entrenched. Drawing on a multi-method dataset—compiling…
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the current non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade in goods in the East African Community (EAC). It identifies inefficiencies and
delays at port and customs, as well as transport delays, multiple transit fees, customs documentation, restricted axle load limits and too many
weigh bridges…
Milton Ayoki
Intra-African trade remains below its potential, contributing only 15 % of the continent’s total commerce in 2023. This paper reviews
the most recent developments—policy, infrastructural, and firm-level—that are reshaping regional exchange against the backdrop…
Milton Ayoki
Policy makers routinely diagnose global agriculture negotiations as grid-locked by North–South distributional conflict, yet continue to
prescribe the same package of incremental tariff-cuts, export subsidy bans and modest domestic-support disciplines that has failed
to resolve…
Milton Ayoki
This paper presents a systematic mapping and analysis of recent agreement-specific proposals aimed at strengthening Special and
Differential Treatment (S&DT) provisions for developing countries within the World Trade Organization (WTO). Drawing on WTO…
Milton Ayoki
This paper dissects the universe of WTO “special and differential treatment” (SDT) proposals advanced since 2017 and still on the
negotiating table. Using a hand-coded dataset of 88 agreement-specific textual submissions, we classify each provision as “good”…
Milton Ayoki
The agricultural pillar of the Doha Round—once heralded as the linchpin of the “Doha Development Agenda” is effectively moribund. Using an institutional-process approach, this paper reviews the trajectory of negotiations from the July 2008 Geneva collapse,..
Milton Ayoki
Using survey data covering 30 districts in Uganda, the paper examines the structure and functioning of the agricultural market in Uganda; the
role of past reforms with regard to food security; the trend in food production and consumption; market linkages; seasonality as well as
recurrent…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the degree of integration among Uganda’s domestic food-commodity markets for the three major staples—matoke, maize, and beans—using monthly wholesale and retail price series spanning January 2015 to January 2023….
Milton Ayoki
Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) was introduced into the GATT/WTO architecture to help developing and least-developed countries (LDCs) surmount structural disadvantages and share in the gains from trade liberalisation. Six decades after its inception this…
Milton Ayoki
This paper documents the developments in the WTO negotiations from Doha to present day, in the context of substantive work programme on
special and differential treatment (S&D) for developing countries. From the evidence so far, no substantial progress has been made in
strengthening the S&D…
Milton Ayoki
This paper re-examines the entire DDA as if development really mattered—treating development not as a diplomatic garnish but as a
measurable improvement in the capabilities, policy space, and structural transformation opportunities of low- and lower-middle-
income countries…
Milton Ayoki
Recent WTO negotiations have revived interest in “market-access-for-development” packages that tie deeper tariff cuts in agriculture
to flexibilities for low-income members. This paper develops a quantitative framework to evaluate whether such proposals can simultaneously…
Milton Ayoki
This paper revisits the theoretical literature on the policy process and examines how it has informed recent trade policy development in Uganda.
Drawing from in-depth interviews with 120 actors from government and non-government agencies and institutions working on trade related issues,…
Milton Ayoki
Despite accounting for barely 3 % of global merchandise trade, Africa’s engagement with the multilateral trading system is pivotal both for the continent’s structural transformation and for the future legitimacy of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This paper…
Milton Ayoki
This paper exploits Uganda’s large-scale road-upgrading programme—spanning 2006-2023 and covering 2,100 km of primary
corridors—to estimate the causal impact of domestic road infrastructure on international trade. Combining geolocated project data with…
Milton Ayoki
This paper quantifies the trade and welfare consequences of the East African Community (EAC) customs-union-cum-common-
market integration using a multi-country, multi-sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model calibrated to the latest available social accounting…
Milton Ayoki
The East African Community (EAC) has made impressive strides in eliminating tariffs, yet intra-regional trade remains stubbornly
below its potential. This paper argues that the true frontier of integration now lies along “the narrow road” of non-tariff measures (NTMs)…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the trade and employment consequences for Africa of the expiry on 1 January 2005 of the Multi-Fibre
Arrangement (MFA) and its successor, the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC). Using panel data on textile-and-clothing…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the prospective economic and trade outcomes of the East African Community (EAC) regional trade arrangement by synthesizing recent empirical evidence. Using a gravity-model framework and panel data covering the period 2005-2022,…
Milton Ayoki
This paper documents the typology, forms, scope, origin and magnitudes, driver and impact of illicit trade in East Africa, with particular
reference to Uganda. This paper shows that intra-regional trade in EAC is substantially lower than what actually takes place in the form of trade
between its neighbours…
Milton Ayoki
Global textile and clothing value chains are undergoing a structural break. From January 2025 the last remaining preferential tariff
schemes—most notably the EU’s Everything But Arms and the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act—expire or are phased out, removing…
Milton Ayoki
We present the “July Package,” a WTO-anchored initiative that grants the 46 least-developed and 32 lower-middle-income countries
duty-free, quota-free (DFQF) entry for 98 % of non-agricultural tariff lines while preserving their right to maintain flexibilities for infant industries….
Milton Ayoki
This paper maps out the entry points for women and women’s organisations in the trade policy processes in Uganda, and provides
understanding of the impact of trade policy on different groups in society. Using a series of in-depth interviews with actors in trade policy
processes…
Milton Ayoki
Regional integration has long been heralded as the key to unlocking East Africa’s latent economic dynamism and consolidating its
political stability, yet progress has been uneven and the dividends unevenly distributed. This paper proposes a holistic, evidence-based…
Milton Ayoki
The Cotonou Agreement (2000) between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states initiated a
paradigm shift from non-reciprocal trade preferences to reciprocal Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) compatible with World Trade Organization rules….
Milton Ayoki
Recent proposals for a “two-tiered” or “dual-track” trade system—typically combining a conventional MFN regime with a second tier of deeper, preferential disciplines for coalitions of “willing” members—are often marketed as a pragmatic response to gridlock in the WTO and the rise of geoeconomic rivalry….
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s first commercial oil production, scheduled for July 2026, presents a narrow window to establish a generational wealth foundation through its Petroleum Revenue Investment Reserve (PRIR)…..
Milton Ayoki
Since 2003, the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) have implemented binding directives to harmonize mining tax regimes and eliminate fiscal competition….
Milton Ayoki
This study examines the impact of Uganda’s tax regime on small and medium enterprise
(SME) growth across five key sectors—agriculture, manufacturing, tourism,
telecommunications, and financial services. Using a novel combination of marginal
effective tax rate (METR) analysis…
Milton Ayoki
After the ECOWAS-backed abolition of Nigeria’s premium-motor-spirit (PMS) subsidy in
June 2023, the pump-price gap between Nigeria and Niger widened overnight from 0.23 to
0.71 USD litre−1….
Forthcoming
Tax Reforms and Domestic Revenue Mobilization in Uganda
Milton Ayoki
The Tax Reforms and Domestic Revenue Mobilisation in Uganda focuses on the link between tax reforms and revenue mobilization. It explores the options available for policy-makers on revenue mobilization in Uganda and tackles fundamental policy questions about what measures
Milton Ayoki
This book provides a critical appraisal of budget support in Uganda since 1998- 2018, highlighting the socio political economy factors for the rise and fall of budget support. It explains why in the past years, support for GBS has diminished significantly among major bilateral donors.
Milton Ayoki
This book explores ways in which donor agencies can avoid the pitfalls of basket funding to impact the lives of the poor in Uganda.
Milton Ayoki
Tax Administration in Poor Countries provides a comprehensive and comparative survey and analysis of tax administration systems, practices and performance across 56 low income countries including 23 from Sub-Saharan Africa (Burundi, Botswana, Burundi, The Gambia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia,
Milton Ayoki
This book traces the tax policy and administrative measures that Uganda government has since introduced and implemented over the past six decades, and explains how the country fared under these reform episodes…..
Milton Ayoki
This book explores the link between tax reforms and revenue mobilization, and the options available for policy-makers on revenue mobilization in Namibia. It sets the current system in the context of reforms that have taken place over the last 30 years…
Milton Ayoki
This book explores the link between tax reforms and revenue mobilization, and the options available for policy-makers on revenue mobilization in Burundi. It sets the current system in the context of reforms that have taken place over the last 30 years or so…
Milton Ayoki
This book explores the link between tax reforms and revenue mobilization, and the options available for policy-makers on revenue mobilization in Rwanda. It sets the current system in the context of reforms that have taken place over the last 30 years or so…
Working Papers
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s public debt has surged to approximately UGX 106 trillion (USD 29 billion) as of December 2024, representing a self-inflicted crisis driven by imprudent fiscal policies, misaligned priorities, and governance failures rather than external shocks. This paper examines how Uganda’s debt trajectory…
Milton Ayoki
This book explores the link between tax reforms and revenue mobilization, and the options available for policy-makers on revenue mobilization in Rwanda. It sets the current system in the context of reforms that have taken place over the last 30 years or so…
Milton Ayoki
This paper evaluates the distributional consequences of Uganda’s recent consumption-tax reform that simultaneously raised VAT and selected excise rates while curbing exemptions. Combining household‐expenditure data (UNHS 2019/20) with the UGAMOD microsimulation model…
Milton Ayoki
This paper develops a theoretical framework that links the statutory Value-Added Tax (VAT) rate to its effective collection efficiency via three margins—registration, compliance, and enforcement—and derives testable predictions about how each margin is shaped by structural features…
Milton Ayoki
The long-standing policy debate on whether to raise public expenditures on agriculture presumes the question is binary—should we spend more or not? Using a panel of 87 low- and middle-income countries (1990-2020) and a novel fiscal allocation–impact frontier model…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the causal pathways through which chronic fiscal indiscipline has precipitated the systemic collapse of public services in Uganda over the period 2000-2023. Combining a synthetic-control fiscal shock analysis with an original service-delivery scorecard covering…
Milton Ayoki
This paper challenges a long-held development-policy assumption that aid flow in world’s poorer countries is caused by lack of domestic resources. It uses comparative data for five African countries (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda) to examine the relationship between growth in public debt …
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the impact of recent tax-administration reforms on revenue performance in Botswana, leveraging newly available data from the 2025/2026 national budget cycle and the phased roll-out of digital fiscalisation. Exploiting the staggered introduction of electronic VAT invoicing …
Milton Ayoki
This paper evaluates the revenue effects of Malawi’s comprehensive tax reforms implemented between 2013 and 2022. Using administrative panel data from the Malawi Revenue Authority and difference-in-differences identification that exploits staggered roll-out across tax instruments…
Milton Ayoki
Whereas the digitalization of the economy can support the development of the country’s domestic tax base and growth of the small and medium sized businesses by providing them with the opportunity to participate in the global marketplace, the rapid expansion of the digital economy has created challenges for the global tax regime…
Milton Ayoki
Low level of domestic revenue is a key barrier to financing development in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the share of revenue to GDP can be as low as less than 10 per cent (e.g. Chad, Niger, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo). The tax effort — measured as tax/GDP ratio—is 20 percentage point lower in Sub-Saharan Africa…
Milton Ayoki
Since the 1990s, many governments in low income countries have undertaken sequence of tax administration reforms aimed at enhancing revenue mobilisation capacity of their tax systems. This new effort is driving important shift in aid architecture development cooperation, in which donors are being encouraged to do more to support revenue-raising efforts in poor countries…
Milton Ayoki
Since the 1990s, many This paper evaluates the performance of Uganda’s tax system within the context of low-income countries, focusing on revenue mobilisation, equity, and administrative efficiency. Despite sustained economic growth, Uganda’s tax-to-GDP ratio remains stagnant at 13.9%, significantly below the sub-Saharan African …
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the challenges and opportunities shaping tax administration in Uganda, a low-income country striving to expand its fiscal capacity amid rapid economic growth and persistent governance constraints. Drawing on administrative data, key informant interviews …
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the multifaceted challenges impeding tax harmonization within the East African Community (EAC) and assesses the implications for regional integration. Anchored in the EAC Treaty’s mandates to eliminate tax distortions and rationalize investment incentives…
A time to sow and a time to reap: Growth in domestic revenue based on Uganda’s 1990-2021 tax reforms, IPRA Working Paper 145, July, 2022
Milton Ayoki
This paper evaluates Uganda’s three-decade effort (1990-2021) to “sow” tax reforms and “reap” higher domestic revenue. Combining administrative data, policy chronologies and counterfactual analysis, we identify three reform waves: (i) 1991-1997—creation of the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA)…
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s persistent poverty confronts external donors with the classic Samaritan’s Dilemma: altruism dictates generous budget-support, yet the same funds risk being diverted through misappropriation and patronage networks. Combining a three-year panel of World-Bank–financed projects (2019-2023)…
Milton Ayoki
The Elusive Quest for Aid in Uganda examines why, despite receiving over US$50 billion in development assistance since 1990, per-capita income has stagnated and poverty remains above 20 percent. Using an original panel dataset that merges geolocated aid projects with high-resolution administrative…
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines how the rapid expansion of the digital economy is reshaping the tax landscape of low- and lower-middle-income countries. Combining new firm-level data from 23 developing countries with case studies of platform taxation, cross-border cloud services, and crypto-asset adoption…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates employment responses to trade liberalisation in a developing economy, Myanmar. Using data from the 2014 Census and the 2017, labour force survey and previous surveys contained in Myanmar Statistical Yearbook…
Milton Ayoki
This paper challenges a long-held development-policy assumption that aid flow in world’s poorer countries is caused by lack of domestic resources. Using comparative data for five African countries—Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda—the paper examines the relationship between growth in public debt and tax revenue…
Milton Ayoki
Following a decade-long surge, Sub-Saharan Africa’s public debt ratio reached a historic high of almost 60 percent of GDP in 2022, pushing over half of the region’s low-income countries into debt distress or high-risk territory. This paper investigates the extent to which fiscal prudence…
Milton Ayoki
This paper provides the first comprehensive assessment of how Rwanda’s recent wave of tax reforms has affected both revenue performance and tax yields. Merging administrative panel data from the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) with firm-level surveys…
Milton Ayoki
Despite Uganda’s sustained macro-economic growth over the past three decades, the country’s tax effort—measured by the tax-to-GDP ratio—has remained stubbornly low at approximately 13 %, well below both the Sub-Saharan African average of 17 % and its own estimated revenue potential of 26 % of GDP…
Milton Ayoki
We analyze Nash and cooperative tax‐setting among heterogeneous jurisdictions that form a customs union. Two countries differ in population (hence market size) but share a perfectly integrated product market and a common external tariff. The large country’s domestic tax base is less export–oriented and less elastic …
By Milton Ayoki
This paper quantifies the revenue-productivity gains generated by Lesotho’s recent tax-reform programme. Using administrative tax records, national accounts and difference-in-difference estimates for the period 2019/20-2024/25, we find that reforms centred on (i) the creation of a new Tax Policy Unit…
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the revenue-productivity effects of Mozambique’s tax reforms since 1998, tracing how policy and administrative changes altered the state’s capacity to convert tax bases into stable and growing revenues. Combining macro-level fiscal data with micro-level revenue-productivity indicators…
Milton Ayoki
The growing evidence of market failure, uncertainties in international cooperation and complexities of the problems of global inequalities has made special and differential treatment of developing countries (S&DT)domestic tax base is less export–oriented and less elastic …
Milton Ayoki
This paper assessed the effectiveness of regional agreements (RTAs) in tackling many of the hurdles that potentially impede access to and presence in services markets. From the approaches and disciplines within the services trade frameworks and framework of the GATS…
Milton Ayoki
This paper offers an assessment of the status of services trade in Africa. It addresses three policy questions: how Africa has fared in trade in services trade over the past decade relative to other regions of the world…
Milton Ayoki
The focus on development adopted at the WTO’s Doha Ministerial Meeting in 2001 has changed the architecture of multilateral trade negotiations, with development issues assuming a central position in the WTO negotiation spaces…
Milton Ayoki
This paper reviews studies that attempt to measure empirically, revenue gains from tax harmonisation. Three groups of studies emerge, those that use cross-country regression, partial equilibrium analysis, and applied general-equilibrium (CGE) models—they all suggest …
Milton Ayoki
This paper documents the tax reforms implemented in Swaziland since the 1990s and how they have contributed to revenue collection. Reforms have had a major impact on collection of indirect taxes (especially VAT) but no clear impact on receipts of direct taxes and trade taxes. Despite efforts to broaden the tax base…
Milton Ayoki
This paper documents the tax reforms implemented in Swaziland since the 1990s and how they have contributed to revenue collection. Reforms have had a major impact on collection of indirect taxes (especially VAT) but no clear impact on receipts of direct taxes and trade taxes. Despite efforts to broaden the tax base…
Milton Ayoki
This paper is a contribution to the current debate on the need for EAC harmonization of domestic taxes. It provides evidence on the existing tax systems and identifies the current tax obstacles to cross-border investment within the EAC. The paper offers estimates of the current effective tax rates on domestic and…
Milton Ayoki
This paper is a contribution to the current debate on the need for EAC harmonization of domestic taxes. It provides evidence on the existing tax systems and identifies the current tax obstacles to cross-border investment within the EAC. The paper offers estimates of the current effective tax rates on domestic and…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates whether fiscal-deficit harmonization is a necessary condition for the efficient functioning of a common market. Using a two-country DSGE model with cross-border factor mobility, trade in goods and services, and endogenous risk premia, we simulate asymmetric deficit shocks…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the fiscal cost and developmental consequences of Uganda’s expanding tax-expenditure regime over the period FY2016/17–FY2022/23. Drawing on Uganda Revenue Authority administrative files, Ministry of Finance Tax-Expenditure Reports, and UNU-WIDER firm-level data…
Milton Ayoki
The Government of Swaziland now attaches greater importance to domestic revenue mobilization than formerly was the case. An important trigger for increased importance of domestic revenue has been the establishment of Swaziland Revenue Authority (SRA) in 2011 and modernisation tax collection system….
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the stance of fiscal policy in Swaziland since the 1980s, and the attempts that have been made to restrain the excessive deficits that have built up over the past 15 years. Swaziland’s fiscal difficulties have arisen in part from two decades of slow growth, and falling revenue from SACU’s revenue sharing pool….
Milton Ayoki
Using panel data from 92 rural districts over 2000-2018, this paper examines the transmission channels through which government spending affects agricultural growth and poverty in rural Uganda. A structural equation model that combines district-level public expenditure records….
Milton Ayoki
Over the past three decades, Anglophone African states have embarked on the most far-reaching tax-administration overhaul attempted anywhere in the developing world. Between 1991 and 2011, 16 of the 19 countries in the region created semi-autonomous revenue authorities…
Milton Ayoki
In this paper, we document the experience with donor funded projects in Uganda, identifying both factors that contributed to its success and that hindered its effectiveness. We find problem of low/slow disbursement to be associated with funds procedures and conditions attached to specific projects…
Milton Ayoki
Drawing on administrative tax records, household‐survey data, and an original review of policy documents, this paper provides a comprehensive assessment of Uganda’s tax performance since the 1990s. Despite two decades of almost continuous reform—including the 1997…
Milton Ayoki
This paper presents a comprehensive diagnostic of Uganda’s tax administration system, drawing on three decades of administrative data, household and firm surveys, and a new set of original interviews with tax officials, taxpayers, and civil-society actors. We find that although Uganda has tripled its domestic…
Milton Ayoki
This paper quantifies the revenue consequences of trade reform in the East African Community (EAC) using a multi-country general-equilibrium framework calibrated to the most recent macro-economic and trade data. Exploiting the phased implementation of the EAC Customs Union…
Milton Ayoki
This study exploits the staggered implementation of Uganda’s 1997-2012 commitments under the East African Community (EAC) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) trade liberalization programs to identify the causal impact of external tariff reductions on domestic revenue performance…
Milton Ayoki, Marios Obwona and Moses Ogwapus
This paper focuses on the requirement to increase government revenue in Uganda and the ways various taxes have responded to changing economic environment. Specifically, the paper looks at the tax reforms implemented by the government and how revenue yields of individual taxes and the overall tax …
Milton Ayoki
This paper describes how the public education expenditure management system works in Uganda. It specifically identifies the formal roles of institutions; the structure and flow of information generated by the public expenditure management system and applies them to the Education Sector in Uganda…
Milton Ayoki and Marios Obwona
This paper evaluates Uganda’s public expenditure management system (PEMS) against the backdrop of two decades of reform
aimed at enhancing fiscal discipline, allocative efficiency, and service-delivery outcomes…
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s first commercial oil production, scheduled for July 2026, presents a narrow window to establish a generational wealth foundation through its Petroleum Revenue Investment Reserve (PRIR)…..
Milton Ayoki
The diffusion of general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) systems is collapsing the marginal cost of cognition, coordination, and capital formation. This abundance of intelligence is simultaneously re-pricing the three residual scarcities that still constrain human welfare…
Milton Ayoki
By July 2025 the Federal Reserve confronted the most treacherous phase of post-pandemic disinflation—“the final mile” in which the last half-percentage-point of inflation proves harder to expunge than the first four. Headline PCE had fallen from 7 % in mid-2022 to 2.5 %, yet core services inflation…
Milton Ayoki
This book reviews the (past, and current ) trends of vulnerability and livelihoods of pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) to provides a fresh understanding of (i) the causes and conditions of household food insecurity in the GHA…
Milton Ayoki
The diffusion of general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) systems is collapsing the marginal cost of cognition, coordination, and capital formation. This abundance of intelligence is simultaneously re-pricing the three residual scarcities that still constrain human welfare: atmospheric carbon space, human labor hours, and irreversible time…
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the Federal Reserve’s July 2025 policy stance at the critical juncture where inflation, though markedly lower than its 2022 peak, remained stuck a perceptible distance above the 2 % target—the proverbial “final mile” of disinflation. Drawing on the minutes of the July 29–30 FOMC meeting, …
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the agricultural productivity effects of infrastructure in Uganda based on set of household-level surveys. It finds a strong link between improvement in rural infrastructure and agricultural productivity increases, but the impact on productivity various with different …
Milton Ayoki
This paper uses data from the 2013 World Bank Enterprise Survey and the follow-up Innovation Survey to examine the role of innovation in driving export growth at firm level in Uganda, and whether firms’ innovation behaviour is simply a reaction to its exports condition. To address potential …
Milton Ayoki
Since independence in 1968, the Kingdom of Eswatini has confronted a succession of external shocks—oil crises, Cold-War‐era geopolitical realignments, trade preference erosion, HIV/AIDS, recurrent droughts, the 2008–09 global financial crisis, commodity…
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s four-decade macroeconomic odyssey (1987-2027) offers a rare empirical laboratory for testing whether sustained policy reforms can transform a war-ravaged, subsistence economy into a lower-middle-income growth pole. Framed by the biblical metaphor of sowing and reaping…
Milton Ayoki
Using nationally representative panel microdata from Uganda’s 2011 and 2014 Innovation Surveys, this paper estimates the causal effect of technological change on firm-level employment. We apply the Harrison–Jaumandreu–Mairesse (2014) decomposition that distinguishes …
Milton Ayoki
We develop a sufficient-statistic test to determine when observed asset-price run-ups are welfare-reducing bubbles rather than privately efficient risk-sharing or information-driven revaluations. Embedding heterogeneous beliefs, financial frictions and pecuniary externalities…
Milton Ayoki
We exploit the May–December 2021 Bitcoin crash to study how large, negative wealth shocks in crypto markets propagate through the balance-sheet choices of U.S. households. Linking anonymized brokerage and depository records to a nationally representative panel of 2.3 million households,…
Milton Ayoki
In the decade-and-a-half since the 2008 global financial crisis, “growth” has become the dominant policy chant across Uganda and much of sub-Saharan Africa—celebrated in boardrooms, parliaments, and donor briefings as proof that the continent has finally “turned the corner.,…
Milton Ayoki
This paper explores the Samaritan’s Dilemma faced by international donors in Uganda, where the ethical imperative to alleviate poverty through budget support intersects with the persistent risk of fund misappropriation. Drawing on recent governance assessments…
Milton Ayoki
This paper exploits a unique panel of Ugandan manufacturing and service‐sector firms (2008–2021) to investigate how firm-level economic growth translates into labour market outcomes. Combining administrative tax records, labour force surveys, and a purpose-built management practices…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the apparent disconnect between Uganda’s sustained macroeconomic growth and its persistently low tax-to-GDP ratio—the “weak link” that constrains fiscal space and public investment. Using annual data from FY1991/92 to FY2022/23, we estimate…
Milton Ayoki
Approximately every 210 000 blocks the Bitcoin protocol halves the block-reward paid to miners, cutting the flow of new supply by 50 %. We exploit the three exogenous halving events that occurred between 28 November 2012, 9 July 2016 and the run-up to May 2020…
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s two-decade drive for an “inclusive” financial system has produced a paradox: record-level account ownership alongside stubbornly low usage, enterprise finance gaps, and household welfare gains that barely diverge from their 1996 baselines. Merging administrative data…
Milton Ayoki
Technical and Vocational Education training for multi-skilled is key in Uganda’s economy. Performance of students in Ugandan Technical Institutions has always been poor and sometimes close to 72 percent failure. Creation of Uganda Business and Technical Examinations Board (UBTEB) …
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates how information and communication technology (ICT) shapes the performance and inclusiveness of women-led agro-enterprises across four African countries—Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda—whose policy environments and digital infrastructures contrast sharply…
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s middle class—though nascent, fluid and still numerically modest—has tripled in size over the past decade and is now the fastest-growing segment of the population. Drawing on three rounds of national household‐survey data (2005/06, 2012/13, 2019/20), 47 in-depth interviews with policymakers…
Milton Ayoki
Eswatini’s small, open economy—long cushioned by apartheid-era relocations and SACU revenue windfalls—proved acutely exposed when the 2008-2009 global financial shock radiated through Southern Africa. Using fiscal, monetary and balance-of-payments data for 2007-2011, …
Milton Ayoki
This paper quantifies the reaction of euro-area money markets to the European Central Bank’s crisis-time policy announcements. Using a high-frequency event-study methodology on the 3-month EURIBOR–OIS spread, we find that conventional rate cuts, fiscal stimulus packages and system-wide…
Milton Ayoki
This paper investigates the evolution and accounting of Uganda’s public administration expenditure from 1960 to 2009, a period marked by profound political and economic transitions. Combining fiscal data reconstruction, archival budget reports, and interviews with former officials, we trace how successive regimes…
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s agricultural policy evolution between 1975 and 2009 offers a natural experiment in how post-conflict, liberalising economies attempt to transform a subsistence-dominated sector into an engine of broad-based growth. Merging archival policy documents…
Milton Ayoki
Africa’s financial-inclusion agenda rests on two implicit promises: that deeper financial systems automatically expand affordable access for firms and households, and that access, once granted, will be used. Using new cross-country and firm-level data, we show that neither promise..
Milton Ayoki
This paper undertakes a comparative policy review of the water sectors of Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda to assess the extent to which national laws, strategies and institutional arrangements enable or impede coordinated management of shared rivers and lakes…
Milton Ayoki
This paper examines the trajectory of agricultural policy reforms in Uganda from independence in 1962 to 2006, tracing the evolution from post-colonial state control through structural adjustment liberalization to the contemporary paradigm of market-oriented modernization. Using a political economy lens …
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s pursuit of agricultural modernization—spanning two decades of reforms, flagship programmes such as the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) and the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), and a growing portfolio of digital and mechanisation…
Milton Ayoki
Marginalized communities are frequently spoken about but rarely heard from in policy-making and public discourse; their absence distorts both the legitimacy and effectiveness of democratic governance. This paper presents a comparative, multi-site study of participatory mechanisms…
Milton Ayoki
This paper uses data from series of Education Statistical Abstract (ESA) 1989-1992, ESA 1993, ESA 1994, ESA 1995, ESA 1996, ESA 1997, ESA 1998, Headcount and School Mapping Exercises 1999, ESA 2000, and ESA 2001 and interviews to assess the effect of UPE, and public education expenditures…
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s 1997 launch of Universal Primary Education (UPE) is usually remembered as an election-season surprise. This article shows, instead, that UPE was the final scene in a 34-year drama that began the moment the British flag was lowered. Drawing on newly de-classified Cabinet papers…
Milton Ayoki
One of the major objectives of UPE and education public spending is equity. One of the major objectives of UPE and education public spending is equity. This paper assesses how equitable Uganda public education expenditure really is – how the public education expenditure differs across the districts…
Milton Ayoki
Uganda’s 1997 Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy was designed to eliminate fees and equalise schooling opportunities. Using two decades of administrative and household-survey data, this paper asks two questions that cut to the heart of UPE’s equity promise…
Milton Ayoki
This study investigates how corruption inflates the true cost of doing business in Uganda. Drawing on a survey of 100 firms—spanning textile and beverage manufacturers, coffee and textile exporters, and importers of textiles and computers—it documents a deeply entrenched…
Milton Ayoki
Corruption in Uganda remains a systemic impediment to equitable development, undermining public service delivery and eroding trust in state institutions. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the evolution and efficacy of Uganda’s anti-corruption legal and institutional architecture…
Milton Ayoki
Across sub-Saharan Africa, the gendered nature of land and natural resource tenure remains a decisive—yet often under-acknowledged—driver of rural livelihood strategies and environmental outcomes. Drawing on longitudinal household surveys, participatory…
Milton Ayoki
Despite employing approximately 70–80 % of Uganda’s labour force and contributing about one-quarter of GDP, the agricultural sector remains dominated by low-productivity subsistence farming and leaves over 20 % of the population below the poverty line…
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