The Revenue Development Foundation brought together RDF staff and government delegates from over 10 countries around the globe for its 2025 annual workshop this year in Dubai, United Arab Emirates from February 10th to 13th. With staff dispersed around the world providing technical advisory services to governments, the annual workshop provides a unique opportunity for both RDF staff members and government officials to collaborate.
The workshop began on the 10th, before the arrival of the country delegates, with the RDF team holding a series of team building sessions. These sessions, organized by board members Meryn Willets and Daniella Woldemichael, helped the 21 staff in attendance to understand their personality types and how their working styles can complement one another.
The following day, RDF welcomed country delegates who assembled from around the world for the workshop. In attendance were 18 government officials from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Papua New Guinea, Zambia, Ghana, Gambia, Cameroon and Senegal. The delegates presented on the implementation of RDF systems within their country-specific contexts and held question and answer sessions after each presentation. These led to productive discussions in which delegates were able to share insights with one another on the use of a range of RDF systems, including xCAS, TAS, GovIn, and Fusion. The presenters then held question and answer sessions with their fellow delegates, and this provided the opportunity for a fruitful exchange of ideas.
On the 12th, RDF staff members conducted breakout sessions in which they discussed with the government delegates in small groups regarding the individual systems they have expertise in. Delegates had the opportunity to visit each station to gain a deeper understanding about the various technologies and services offered by RDF. On the final day of the workshop, delegates had the opportunity to engage with RDF’s developer team to directly provide their input on how they would like to see the systems evolve to meet their needs going forward.
The 2025 RDF workshop was successful in achieving its desired outcomes. It provided delegates and RDF staff the opportunity to engage in face-to-face interactions essential for building rapport both within the organisation and externally with our government partners; it allowed for country-to-country knowledge sharing of best practices in the use of RDF systems; and it enabled RDF to solicit detailed feedback on how to further enhance its systems to meet the needs of government in managing their revenue.
Mariane Ndiaye with ITIE Sénégal said:
A big thank you to the whole RDF team for the warm welcome and the good atmosphere in which the work took place. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our experience and to know that we can still count on you for the little problems encountered on our platforms.
Pierre Onana Omgba with Direction Générale des Impôts of Cameroon said:
We thank RDF for these special moments of work in an exceptional setting … We hope that such meetings will take place regularly to strengthen the scope of RDF applications and links with the different countries that also use them for increased experience sharing.
