We have just published our second set of papers, this time about Illicit Financial Flows.
Did you know that Africa has has been a net creditor to the world over the period 1980-2009 to the tune of up to $1.4 trillion?
When we think about development priorities, we think of disease, nutrition and education, but actually IFF is a big player. 20 sub-Saharan Africa countries have lost more than 10% of their GDPs every year since 1980 to illicit financial flows. Africa as a whole is estimated to be losing 3.4% of GDP or $76bn each year.
As reported in the Wall Street Journal today, the key is to make all beneficial ownership public. For every dollar spent the world can gain $49.
IFF Targets
Benefit For Every Dollar
Reduce to zero the legal persons and arrangements for which beneficial ownership info is not publicly available.
$49
Reduce to zero the cross-border trade and investment relationships between jurisdictions for which there is no bilateral automatic exchange of tax information.
Likely To Be High
Reduce to zero the number of multinational businesses that do not report publicly on a country-by-country basis.
Likely To Be High
One of the academic perspective papers also proposes this target: "reduce illicit financial flows related to trade mis-invoicing by 50%," estimating a benefit of $26 for every dollar spent.
You can read the all the reports at www.post2015consensus.com/illicitfinancialflows
Alex Cobham, research fellow at the Center for Global Development in Europe writes the main report, peer-reviewed in perspective papers by Peter Reuter of Maryland University, School of Public Policy, and Tom Cardamone, Managing Director and Dev Kar, Chief Economist at Global Financial Integrity. Additionally, NGOs and stakeholders such as UNODC and Policy Forum present viewpoint papers concerning Cobham’s analysis.
Best regards,
Bjorn Lomborg
PhD and Adjunct Professor
President of Copenhagen Consensus Center
PS. The Post-2015 Consensus project brings together more than 50 top economists, NGOs, international agencies and businesses to identify the targets with the greatest benefit-to-cost ratio for the next set of UN development goals. If you have questions about the project, send an email to Research Project Manager Brad Wong by replying to this email.
