Domestic Resource Mobilization Trust Fund

The Domestic Resource Mobilization Trust Fund (DRMTF) aims to enhance domestic resource mobilization in ADB’s developing member countries to achieve the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 17.1: “Strengthen domestic resource mobilization, including through international support to developing countries, to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection.” It prioritizes activities with strong links to ADB operational activities and/or concerns consistent with country strategies and programs. The DRMTF is an important source of funding for the initiatives of ADB’s Asia Pacific Tax Hub, established at the 54th ADB Annual Meeting in 2021, to serve as an open and inclusive platform for strategic policy dialogue, knowledge sharing, and development coordination among ADB, its member countries, and development partners.

In addition to projects which facilitated reforms in tax policy and administration, the fund supported the publication of two policy briefs in 2023. The brief Mobilizing Revenue: Emerging Approaches to Managing and Collecting Tax Debt to Improve Tax Payment Compliance explores good practices in the management of tax debt and ways in which revenue bodies are using advances in technology and behavioral insights research to improve revenue performance by increasing tax payment compliance. Mobilizing Revenue: Strengthening Large Taxpayer Administration reviews the various organizational structures, systems, and approaches that revenue bodies worldwide use to monitor and improve the compliance of large business taxpayers, together with contemporary research findings to highlight opportunities to increase the effectiveness of large taxpayer administration.