Financial Transparency Coalition

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said, “I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.” He might well have said development. Regions that have experienced the fastest growth in the last fifty years have also had a tax base they could use to invest in the infrastructure of growth – roads, schools, and health. While some have argued that taxes impede growth, the long-term picture doesn’t sit well with that theory.

Stealing Africa, a documentary in the series Why Poverty that focuses on the case of the international mining giant Glencore in Zambia, is a must-watch for anyone concerned with domestic resource mobilization, global poverty, the resource curse, or illicit financial flows. These topics mesh together to one simple idea: money that should be staying in Africa's poorest nations is in fact fleeing at an astounding rate, and something needs to be done about it.

Back in September I was sitting in the salubrious office of an official from one of International Financial Institutions – when he slouched back in his chair, sighed and said ‘I can’t even bear to read those G20 communiqués – they are so vacuous.’ That evening, I found myself at a dinner hosted by DC law firm Jones Day where former Mexican President Zedillo branded the G20 ‘a disappointment.’

Christian Aid's David McNair Recounts His Trip to Washington, DC for the International Monetary Fund's Spring Meetings Last Week Extreme turbulence and black clouds were the order of the day as I flew through a storm into Washington, DC. Ironic, then, that I was on my way to the institution tasked with picking up the pieces of the financial crisis and managing these turbulent economic times. But the International Monetary Fund (IMF) itself has not escaped from the crisis unchanged. The new ‘fund’ seems less driven by economic orthodoxy at the expense of other perspectives and more open to criticism –...