Financial Transparency Coalition

This paper, written by Eurodad for CONCORD’s Aidwatch coalition sets out all the financial resources potentially available for development, examines their key characteristics, and discusses their poverty and sustainable development impacts, and the implications for aid. This discussion could not come at a more important time. Aid is under severe pressure as donors seek to cut budgets and to reorient aid to more clearly attribute direct ‘results’ to it. Recent initiatives at European and donor level have sought to change the focus of the aid debate towards stimulating the private sector, including emphasizing the role of private flows, particularly foreign...

The bail out of the troubled banking sector in Cyprus has taken on serious political overtones as the crisis deepens. During the past few weeks Cyprus has been accused of failing to combat money laundering and fraud and that Russian oligarchs seek refuge for their money in this “tax haven” country.

If you only watch one video today, this one is for you. Task Force member Global Witness published their stunning investigation today. The documentary uncovers how corruption is facilitated in Malaysia. Hidden cameras show Malaysian money launderers explaining exactly how they are going to set up an anonymous shell company (complete with finding rural villagers to sign their names on as nominee shareholders), buy massive amounts of land from corrupt Malaysian officials, and move the money to a secret Singapore bank account. Malaysia lost $285 billion in 2001-2010 to illicit financial outflows, and Global Witness has vividly demonstrated how such...

If there is a one sentence argument that we forward here at the Task Force, it is this: financial opacity, of all kinds, is a root cause of global poverty. Media reports sometimes fail to make this connection and sometimes tinker around the edges of it, but rarely make the link as directly as Hakima Abbas' excellent op-ed for Al-Jazeera.