Financial Transparency Coalition

Today the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations reported that 925 million people are undernourished in 2010. This is actually a decline from the all-time high of 1.02 billion in 2009. It’s easy to forget, when faced with our own brand of pain in the developed world, that a global recession is the difference between life and death for millions worldwide. It is startling to realize that an economic downturn that originates in the skyscrapers of New York can hit hardest in the rural towns of Bangladesh and Ethiopia, where most haven’t heard of...

The High Level Plenary meeting on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will gather in the UN headquarters in New York from 20 to 22 September with a view to assess and accelerate progress towards the achievement of the MDGs. Prospects for such progress look gloomy since all MDGs are currently off-track. Heads of State and Government will need to move a step forwards and adopt ambitious commitments in order to meet the 2015 deadline. However, according to sources involved in the negotiation of the summit’s final outcome, this agreement is more likely to be a new compilation of abstract...

On 15^th June the European Parliament passed a resolution on progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): mid-term review in preparation for the UN high-level meeting in September 2010. This resolution sets out a number of recommendations for EU Member States ahead of the summit. It acknowledges that “all eight MDGs are currently off-target” and asks member states to adopt a leading, ambitious and united position to meet the MDGs before the 2015 deadline. Overall, this resolution is more ambitious than the position adopted by EU Member...

Director of Global Financial Integrity Raymond Baker addressed international tax cooperation as a panelist at the informal United Nations panel discussion held yesterday in New York. Mr. Baker participated in the event's second panel on innovative development financing initiatives under development. Philippe Douste-Blazy, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Innovative Financing for Development, chaired the day-long event and provided opening and closing remarks. The meeting allowed for informal and interactive discussion of all the issues related to accomplishing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. The first panel focused specifically on mechanisms of innovative development...