Many countries in West Africa have large amounts of natural resources, such as gold, bauxite and diamonds. Yet these countries lack the legal framework and administrative capacity needed to share the wealth generated from these resources with the government and the population as a whole. This paper, published by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, examines mining sector taxation in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where practices of mining taxation have been introduced at different scales. This paper documents the strengthening of revenue governance in the mining sector among these four countries with the aim of sharing lessons learned more broadly.  

To strengthen mining taxation, the governments of these countries need to:

• set up a robust and coherent legal and regulatory framework to govern the extractives sector;
• devise policies that enable sustainable growth of the sector to the benefit of all;
• and establish effective administrative systems and procedures that ensure that the government retains a fair share of the proceeds from extractive activities that can be invested in its current and future citizens.