Financial Transparency Coalition

The resource curse has long been a problem for Africa. The continent’s economies have remained stagnant and hollow for nearly 60 years while a succession of autocrats and their clients have become fabulously wealthy. With huge natural gas discoveries off of the Mozambican coast, vast newfound oil reserves in the Great Lakes region and more than $1 trillion worth of minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there is vast potential for another wasted generation.

Due to current tensions in Tunis and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, the 2012 Annual Conference of the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development has been cancelled.

On September 11th the European Parliament voted in favour of introducing a minimum tax rate on interests and royalty income. This is a crucial step in the fight against tax dodging by multinational companies. Royalties and interest payments made between subsidiaries of the same company are two of the main instruments used by multinational companies to evade taxes, at the moment this is far too easy.

100 Reporters, the cutting edge non-profit group of journalists focused on exposing corruption, is sponsoring a photography contest. Two years after Teodorin Obiang and the rest of the corrupt Equatorial Guinea regime were exposed for lavish spending in the United States, 100 Reporters is asking contestants for images of corruption in New York City, as world leaders gather at the United Nations.