Why this conference matters

As West Africa faces the challenges of fiscal sovereignty, digitalization, and public finance governance, the region’s tax systems must evolve to support inclusive growth and sustainable development.

WAUTI 2026 provides a platform for:
• Cross-regional dialogue | between tax professionals, policymakers, and institutions from West Africa and the international community
• Public finance governance | transparency, accountability, and the social contract as pillars of fiscal legitimacy
• Regulatory innovation | legal and regulatory instruments to address digitalization, illicit financial flows, and base erosion

Prof. Valente’s intervention

Prof. Piergiorgio Valente, President of CFE Tax Advisers Europe and Chairman of GTAP – Global Tax Advisers Platform, participated remotely as Discussant on the panel “Public Finance Governance: Transparency, Accountability and Social Contract”.

In his speech – “Global Tax Transitions and Transformative Legal Architecture in Africa” – Prof. Valente addressed the following themes:
• GTAP as a global reference platform | GTAP brings together 65 national professional institutes from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Europe, representing over 700,000 tax advisers – a worldwide community of practice committed to fiscal integrity and cooperative compliance
• From coordination to integration | The biennium 2026-2027 marks a decisive threshold: taxation ceases to function solely as an instrument of revenue extraction and assumes a broader role in structuring economic legitimacy in a world defined by intangibility, mobility, and asymmetry
• Transparency and the UN Framework Convention | Transparency now constitutes the backbone of international tax legitimacy. The convergence of data exchange and cooperative compliance points toward a “global fiscal commons” in which opacity becomes structurally untenable
• Digitalization and conceptual reinvention | Blockchain, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse dissolve the boundaries upon which taxation has historically relied. Classical categories of residence, source, and permanent establishment appear increasingly inadequate
• Africa as a central horizon | Africa’s strategic challenge is not merely to attract investment but to construct the jurisprudential infrastructure capable of sustaining it – from harmonized commercial and tax law to the AfCFTA’s transformative potential, judicial independence, and a continent-wide epistemic community of jurists, economists, and policymakers.

Prof. Valente concluded by underscoring that investing in legal instruments means investing in predictability, sovereignty, and the creative power of African societies to determine their own development horizon.

Key Conference Topics

The conference featured technical sessions, expert panels, and interactive sessions focusing on:
• Global taxation | Taxation in a complex, digitalized, and global environment
• Public finance governance | Transparency, accountability, and the social contract
• Extractive industry | Unlocking domestic resources for sustainable development in West Africa
• International tax treaties | Shaping treaties to safeguard the sovereignty of West African states
• Illicit financial flows | Strengthening fiscal regimes to address tax evasion and illicit flows