This paper considers how men and women in eastern and northern Sierra Leone interact
differently with formal and informal revenue collection. It argues that the literature on tax and
gender equity needs to be expanded in low-income countries to pay greater attention to the
ways that citizens pay for public services in practice. It shows that formal taxation affects a very
small proportion of the population, and especially of the female population. The reality is that
women primarily pay for services at the local level through informal revenue contributions, which
has the potential to reinforce gender inequities on account of the implications for intra-household
divisions of power and lack of associated opportunities for political representation.
