Financial Transparency Coalition

In September, the Financial Transparency Coalition welcomed the Argentina-based NGO Fundación SES to the Coalition’s Coordinating Committee. Founded in the midst of Argentina’s severe currency crisis in 2001, its mission is to work for educational, social, political, and economic inclusion of teenagers and young adults, who were viewed as most impacted by the economic upheaval.

Over time, they have deepened their work to address structural economic barriers to development at the national and regional level, including external debt, financial inequality, and a lack of fiscal transparency. SES is highly focused on government budget issues within Argentina and has identified taxation and the impact of illicit financial flows on domestic resource mobilization among their central concerns. In the past, they have partnered with FTC Coordinating Committee members – including with Christian Aid to articulate the connection between education and tax justice and with Latindadd in its work on sovereign debt.

As they continue to expand their work on debt and taxation, SES has begun to monitor and participate in high-level international forums, such as the G20 meetings. They have joined civil society in pushing for reform to the global institutional architecture and for greater transparency in the international financial system. At the regional level, they are members of the Argentine chapter of the Forum for Citizen participation (UNASUR), the Economic and Social Forum of MERCOSUR, and founding members of Tax Justice Network- Latin America and Caribbean.

Nationally, SES cooperates with the national commission on external debt and seeks a critical review of banking and financial instruments which enable tax evasion, including off shore tax havens. They have seized upon the opportunities presented by the publication of the Panama Papers, which implicated many high-profile Argentinian citizens, to engage policy-makers and advocate for a beneficial ownership register.

This past August, SES hosted a highly anticipated follow-up to last year’s International Conference on Beneficial Ownership Registries at Argentina’s Central Bank with the Tax Justice Network, Argentina’s General Prosecution Office (Ministerio Público Fiscal), Latindadd and the Red de Justicia Fiscal LAC.

More than 200 people attended the event, which brought together civil society organizations from Latin America as well as public officers from Argentina’s tax authorities (AFIP), the commercial registry (IGJ), the SEC, the Foreign Office, judges, prosecutors and journalists. In addition, Costa Rica’s Vice-Minister of Economy and authorities from Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay participated in this high-level conversation on financial transparency.

Over the course of two days, SES leveraged their network-building capacity to promote dialogue among different sectors to strengthen national strategies against drug trafficking, corruption, money laundering and tax evasion and in turn, generate debate and policy recommendations on regional and global strategies for a coordinated response. Their partnership with the FTC comes at a time when SES is looking to scale up current work on these issues and collaborate more strategically at the global level.

Fundación SES is the tenth member of the FTC’s Coordinating Committee, which will add two more members in 2017 as part of its ongoing recruitment process.

Welcoming New Allied Organizations

This fall, we also celebrate the addition of several new partners to our Allied Organization Network: Open Contracting Partnership, the International Budget Partnership, Natural Resource Governance Institute, Fundación Nacional Para el Desarrollo (El Salvador), the Bandung Institute of Governance Studies (Indonesia), the Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies (Guatemala) and CUTS International (India).

Allied Organizations endorse the goals of the FTC and provide support towards our effort to promote a transparent and equitable global financial system. These organizations work on a variety of issues related to fighting illicit flows, including transparency in the extractive industries, budget accountability, open data, corruption, and more.

For more information on joining the Allied Organization Network, please contact jasher@financialtransparency.org.