Financial Transparency Coalition

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...

BRUSSELS—A debate was held on transparency and extractive industries in Africa at the European Parliament on 15 September 2010, organised by CIDSE, an international alliance of Catholic development agencies and its partner organisation SECAM, the pan-African bishops’ conference. The debate highlighted how “the lack of transparency is killing the African people,” as stated by Bishop Louis Portella-Mbuyu of Congo-Brazzaville, who for years has fearlessly challenged his government and transnational extractive companies. EU legislation could contribute to recuperating the huge amount of uncollected tax revenue, far surpassing development aid. The European Commission recently reviewed its EU transparency regulation setting up transparency...

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.

On Wednesday I wrote a blog post about the number of people worldwide who suffer from hunger; a figure that has dropped in the last year, but is still much higher than it was a decade ago. I wrote that in 2000 the United Nations (UN) set about the lofty goal of halving global poverty and hunger as part of its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs represent perhaps the most ambitious set of development objectives ever. And next week, in New York City, world leaders will convene for a UN Summit to evaluate the progress...