The global financial and economic crisis has accelerated vast transformations in the current landscape of development finance. While ODA budgets are increasingly under threat, public development finance is increasingly being used to leverage private financial resources. This is taking place at a time when the patterns in private flows are swiftly changing – including through the increasing prominence of capital flows from emerging economies, and the changing landscape in global finance in the wake of the global crisis.
The Global Corruption Report is the first comprehensive publication of its kind to explore the corruption risks related to tackling climate change. From international policy-making to national level mitigation and adaptation strategies and with a special focus on the forestry sector, the GCR draws on the expertise of more than 50 experts and practitioners from the anti-corruption movement and the climate change field.
PARIS – With Ghana, Georgia and Nigeria joining in the past few weeks, the Global Forum on Transparency has now 101 members and expects more countries to join soon.
PARIS (OECD) – Bulgaria should do more to prevent, report, detect and prosecute foreign bribery cases, according to a new report by the OECD Working Group on Bribery.
This report includes a summary of all the presentations from the 2010 Task Force annual conference and concludes with priorities for 2011.
Tax Research UK published a new report this weekend on the administration of the UK’s Register of Companies by Companies House, the agency responsible for it on behalf of the UK government’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. The report extended the review to look at the administration of corporation tax returns by H M Revenue & Customs, the UK’s tax agency. In combination these are the two main agencies with responsibility for registering and regulating companies in the UK. The Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development funded the study.
The report explains illicit capital flight, how it happens, its magnitude and its consequences for development, measures taken so far and measures needed to end it. It also includes a specific chapter on capital flight from Africa and presents illustrative case studies from Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania. These are written by Attiya Waris from Tax Justice Network Africa and by the Budget Working Group of Policy Forum in Tanzania.
In October 2010, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), published a consultation paper seeking input as the organization conducts a review of its 40+9 Recommendations. Attached is the official response from the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development (Task Force).
In December 2008, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) published a report entitled Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2002-2006 (referred to as the 2008 IFF report). The 2010 IFF report is an update of the first with the added value of a focus on Asia. This study analyzes outflows from Asia in somewhat greater depth with particular reference to outflows from the top five Asian exporters of illicit capital. In response to several requests for more up-to-date analysis of illicit flows, the present update also estimates the volume and pattern of illicit flows in 2009 based on macroeconomic projections and assumptions underlying the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook. In the process, the 2010 IFF Report seeks to gauge the impact of the current global economic crisis on the volume and pattern of illicit flows from developing countries.
Tax is the foundation of all civilisations. The act of tracing tax policies and practices reveals the history of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, state and citizen.
In Africa this relationship can be traced back over millennia. For instance, Egypt’s famed Rosetta Stone, created in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic era, was an agreement granting a tax exemption to priests, and certain reductions to the military and other ruling classes, including traders approved by the king. it was an early example of the special privileges that continue to proliferate across the continent.
If poor countries are to break away from the clutches of poverty, it is important that the aid they currently receive from the international community is disbursed and used in the most effective ways possible. The European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) and the Uganda National Non-Governmental Organisations Forum (UNNGOF) have identifiedpublic procurement and aid agency procurement as key areas where progress can be made to render aid more effective.
The official document released by world leaders following the 2010 G20 Summit in Seoul, Korea.
The Task Force on Financial Integrity & Economic Development
1319 18th Street, NW Suite 200 Washington, DC 20036
Email: info@financialtaskforce.org
Telephone: +1 (202) 293-0740 | Fax: +1 (202) 293-1720
© 2009-2012 Task Force on Financial Integrity & Economic Development
Some rights reserved. 
