Financial Transparency Coalition

California spends about $8,500 per year to educate its public school students. That’s about $3,300 less than the national average. In fact, according to Education Week in a national ranking of states and D.C., California ranks near the bottom, at 49^th, in terms of per-pupil spending. There are reasons to believe that one cause of this problem is the system of property taxation in California—and its loopholes. The biggest player in property taxation and its policy in California is Proposition 13. Approved by California’s voters in 1978, Proposition 13 sets limits on the annual increases of assessed value...

On September 24th, tucked away in a quiet conference room in the basement of the UN General Assembly building, an extraordinary conversation took place on the future of global development.  But, despite the gathering of representatives from the OECD, UN, World Bank, USAID and the Mexican, Australian, and Nigerian governments, the event received exactly zero media coverage. Titled “Curbing Illicit Financial Flows for Domestic Resource Mobilization and Sustainable Development in the Post-2015 Era,” the focal point of the two-hour discussion was how the international community could, as the program description put...

A powerful 20 minute film just out from Carte Blanche, a major South African investigative news programme lifts the lid on the country’s illegal mining sector. The film takes us on a journey where “poor, desperate people” brave gunmen to go underground to look for gold in atrocious conditions. We witness illegal gold trades by a headteacher on his own school grounds during school hours and hear from gold traders making 10 million rand a month (about $900,000). The film shows us the “new randlords” and organised crime syndicates who rake in billions buying black market gold. But the value of this gold...