Financial Transparency Coalition

Since the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy, the OECD, and European leaders of the G8 have all committed to tackling tax havens, with a mixed record of successful reform. However, leading up to this week’s meeting of the G8, David Cameron is calling for the organization’s leaders to commit to addressing the global shadow financial system that has allowed illicit financial flows to stream into tax havens.

In this week’s issue of the Economist, Paul Collier of Oxford University, an adviser to Cameron, argues that transparency reforms are a positive step forward for global development, “Instead of preaching to poor countries or promising to double aid, which we never did anyway, the idea now is for the G8 to put its own house in order, in ways that are good for us and also good for Africa.”