Financial Transparency Coalition

We've arrived at the eve of the our annual conference, co-hosted this year in Lima, Peru by FTC member Latin American Network on Debt, Development, and Rights (LATINDAD). While the main conference begins tomorrow, journalists, civil society leaders and researchers are already hard at work. The week began today with a journalist training that included presentations from renowned investigative journalists like Hernán Capiello, Ángel Páez, and former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson. The training brought together more than 15 journalists from 10 different countries in Latin America...

Experts, advocates, government officials and journalists from all regions of the globe will be gathering next week in Lima, Peru to scale-up strategic efforts to curb illicit financial flows in ways which ensure sufficient, equitable and accountable financing of sustainable development. The timing couldn’t be more auspicious. As governments move into the final stages of negotiating a set of new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to replace the Millennium Development Goals after their expiration date next year, this post-2015 momentum represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the contours of national government priorities, policies and financing decisions in areas from education to...

The indefatigable US-based organisation Good Jobs Firsthas sent a fascinating email, which relates to the United States but could have general relevance for other countries. This one is located at the fascinating, busy intersection between tax and transparency.

There is just a week to go before the start of the Hidden Money, Hidden Resources conference in Lima, organized by the Financial Transparency Coalition and Latindadd, and the agenda covers a number of topics which are highly relevant to the Americas. The panel I´ve been invited to moderate, for example, will be exploring the links between citizen security, organized crime, corruption and money-laundering. Latin America and the Caribbean as a region has the highest levels of citizen insecurity in the world, and is the only region where criminal violence increased between 2000 and 2010 according to UNDP.