Financial Transparency Coalition

Following the annual conference of the Task Force on Financial Integrity & Economic Development last week in Bergen, Norway, Global Financial Integrity Director Raymond Baker had the opportunity to give a lecture on the issue of illicit financial flows and the impact they have on development hosted by the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre and the Chr. Michelsen Institute at the the Bergen Resource Centre for International Development. Check out the full lecture below:

At its annual conference last week, the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development identified concrete measures that could help developing countries to mobilise the resources needed to achieve the Millennium Developing Goals (MDGs) and go even further to help eradicate world poverty and lay the ground for a fairer global financial system. These measures include:

• taxing the USD 15 to 20 trillion of private wealth sitting in tax havens
• establishing accounting standards that oblige multinational companies to report their profits earned in every country
• or setting rules for the automatic exchange of tax information between countries.

The Task Force...

I presented the new report I have written for a range of NGOs entitled ‘Investment for Development: Derailed to Tax Havens’ in Bergen last evening. I did so sitting next to Kjell Roland, the Managing Director of NorFund – the Norwegian Development Finance Institution. Kjell said to the audience present he imagined that Norfund could sign up straight away to the Coe of Conduct I have proposed. I hope it does. I hope it leads the way in persuading others to do so.

The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the attached outcome document for the 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit by consensus on September 22, 2010. The document puts forth an action agenda for achieving the MDGs by 2015; the agenda includes tackling the issue of illicit financial flows as one of the action items.