Financial Transparency Coalition

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...

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...

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...