Financial Transparency Coalition

An explosion of anti-corruption protests this month saw effigies burnt in India, hundreds protesting in Russia, and mass riots in China. As tensions rise, the focus of the anti-corruption debate has begun to shift. Instead of seeing corruption as hurtful because it destroys the environment, weakens governments, and harms the poor, some governments have begun to see corruption as hurtful because of its economic consequences. A recent Moscow Times article by Anders Aslund incorporates this shift in thinking. Claiming corruption is so pervasive that investments to increase productivity are virtually impossible, Aslund writes: “Russia cannot build public infrastructure because standard...

LONDON – Christian Aid has welcomed a new from the World Bank for countries to exchange information about who really owns companies, bank accounts and other financial assets within their borders, in a bid to help recover the billions currently stolen from poor countries each year.

Co-Authored by Maria José Romero and Rachel Sharpe

A new report by Eurodad and Action Aid

Tax policy has been at the heart of policy advice from the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) to developing countries for the last twenty years. Tax reforms became an increasingly important part of the structural adjustment programmes promoted by the World Bank and the IMF in developing countries from the late 1980’s. This paper reviews existing literature on the IFIs approach to tax policy reform during the last decade. NGO and academic research suggest that the IFIs have used technical assistance and policy advice to encourage developing...

In December 2008, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) published a report entitled Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2002-2006 (referred to as the 2008 IFF report). The 2010 IFF report is an update of the first with the added value of a focus on Asia. This study analyzes outflows from Asia in somewhat greater depth with particular reference to outflows from the top five Asian exporters of illicit capital. In response to several requests for more up-to-date analysis of illicit flows, the present update also estimates the volume and pattern of illicit flows in 2009 based on macroeconomic projections and...