Strategies to Boost Domestic Revenue Mobilization in Cameroon

Domestic resource mobilization has been identified as a sustainable source of development finance in low-income countries. This comes after the 2015 Addis Ababa Conference on financing development, where the responsibility of countries for their social and economic development was reiterated. Hence, the importance of strengthening domestic resource mobilization over foreign aid, to finance development. In this regard, mobilizing revenues by strengthening tax policy and administration, was strongly encouraged (United Nations, 2015).Cameroon plans to be an upper-middle-income country by 2035. To succeed, it must implement reforms to harness domestic resources to finance its vision. However, despite past efforts, domestic resource mobilization is below international benchmarks and regional averages. Major headwinds have been identified and include:- A Weak policy framework- Narrow tax base, due to rising tax expenditures and the informal sector.- Inefficient tax administration and governance This paper will carry an evidence-based diagnosis of the above-mentioned headwinds, and demonstrate how they affect resource mobilization in Cameroon while proposing actionable reforms adapted to local political and administrative realities.It is argued that while tax policy weaknesses are easily identifiable, reforming them requires high-level political support than tax administration and governance. Besides, reform of the latter has short-run positive impacts on revenue collection, since it can rapidly be deployed to influence behavior and address issues in the economy affecting tax collection, like the shadow economy