Financial Transparency Coalition

PRESS RELEASE Tonight, the Addis Ababa outcome was closed. The final outcome rejects the proposal of establishing an intergovernmental UN body on tax matters, and instead introduces some minor changes to the existing UN expert committee. This means that the OECD will remain the only intergovernmental body that adopts global standards on tax matters.

Last Saturday a landmark decision was taken when the African Union, made up of 54 African Heads of State, adopted the report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows (IFF). This report documents the scale and impact of IFF from the continent and gives a range of policy recommendations. Our friends at the Tax Justice Network says the report is“probably the most important report yet produced on this issue” and for good reasons. The new report is not only a strong testament to the importance that African leaders are...

‘Give a man a fish’, goes the old saying, ‘and he’ll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he’ll eat forever.’ In its time, this was a progressive message, arguing for sustainable development approaches over simple aid-giving, but it now sounds rather dated. Worse than the apparent gender bias is the underlying assumption that development solutions involve ‘us’ teaching ‘them’ how to avoid being poor. The thrust of Christian Aid’s work on financial integrity, and that of the Task Force and its other members,...