Analysis
Concerned African Scholars: Africa's Capital Losses. What can be done?
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- Written by E.J. Fagan (GFI)
We should have highlighted this back in the fall, but failed to do so. The Association of Concerned African Scholars (ACAS) released a fantastic series of articles titled, “Africa’s Capital Losses: What Can Be Done?” The series is edited by Léonce Ndikumana and James Boyce, members of the Task Force’s Economist’s Advisory Council, and includes articles by Global Financial Integrity and Task Force Director Raymond Baker, as well as Tax Justice Network’s John Christensen and Nicholas Shaxson. From the introduction:
“In their 2011 pathbreaking book, Africa’s Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent, Léonce Ndikumana and James Boyce demonstrate the systematic draining from Africa of resources by this global system, in which rich individuals and large companies hide income and assets from public scrutiny and from taxation by transferring them across borders. Africa’s situation is aggravated by its vulnerability in the world economy, by the weaknesses of African states, and by the misguided assumption that this pattern stems only from the personal corruption of African leaders. In fact, despite the many differences between the rich countries of the West and developing countries in Africa, the same structural realities and the same institutions are implicated in the “fiscal crises” of Europe and North America and in the failure of African states to capture and channel sufficient resources to development.
Read more: Concerned African Scholars: Africa's Capital Losses. What can be done?
A World Bank for the 21st Century
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- Written by Jose Antonio Ocampo
It’s time to re-think the role of the World Bank, says former Colombian finance minister José Antonio Ocampo, who was recently one of the three contenders for heading it. And a basic lesson the bank needs to re-learn is never to impose any particular development model
When the World Bank’s new president, Jim Jong Kim, took over in July of this year, he did so after the first-ever open competition for the job. This, along with significant long-term changes in the structure of the world economy and its unsettled state, makes it an opportune time to re-think the role of the bank as one of the great international institutions. Such re-thinking must start with the lessons learned from our experience of development co-operation as well as from a clear understanding of the changes now taking place in the world economy. It means adapting the World Bank to the changing needs of the international community but also, in some cases, taking the institution back to its roots.
Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address: Tragedy Has Many Faces
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- Written by Jack Rasmus
Tonight, February 12, 2013, President Obama delivered his State of the Union address. He concluded with an emotional appeal for gun control, repeating a call for Congress to at least put the matter of gun control to a vote after referencing the Newtown, Ct., tragic massacre of 26 children and other recent acts of gun violence in the US. It was an emotional high point of his address, and a very moving moment.
But there was another reference in his speech that also addressed life and death matters, potentially impacting not 26 but hundreds of thousands of those other of America’s most vulnerable—our senior population.
Read more: Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address: Tragedy Has Many Faces
U.N.'s Water Agenda at Risk of Being Hijacked by Big Business
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- Written by Thalif Deen/ IPS
Amidst growing new threats of potential conflicts over fast-dwindling water resources in the world's arid regions, the United Nations will commemorate 2013 as the International Year of Water Cooperation (IYWC).
But Maude Barlow, chairperson, Council of Canadians and a former senior advisor on water to the president of the U.N. General Assembly in 2008-2009, warns the U.N.'s water agenda is in danger of being hijacked by big business and water conglomerates.
"We don't need the United Nations to promote private sector participation under the guise of greater 'cooperation' when these same companies force their way into communities and make huge profits from the basic right to water and sanitation," Barlow told IPS.
Read more: U.N.'s Water Agenda at Risk of Being Hijacked by Big Business
Health in the post-2015 development agenda
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- Written by People's Health Movement
As the deadline for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approaches, the UN is driving a global consultation around a new global development agenda post 2015. The People’s Health Movement (PHM) welcomes the prospect of a global compact which commits to sustainable and equitable development. However, the negotiators will need to go beyond the mere palliation of symptoms to confront the dynamics that are driving widening inequality, avoidable suffering and accelerated destabilization of the biosphere including global warming. The UN documents on a post 2015 development agenda are neither addressing the looming crisis of capitalism, accelerated by the ascendant ideology of neoliberalism nor the unequal global power relations which both reflect and deepen the crisis.
Forget post-2015 development goals – a global new deal is what's needed
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- Written by Richard Kozul-Wright
Finance-led globalisation has failed – which is our cue to forget about setting targets and adopt a development-led approach
Many familiar problems were raised at the Liberia meeting of the UN high-level panel tasked with drafting global post-2015 development goals: extreme poverty, lack of productive employment, environmental degradation and growing inequality. But these big questions are still being met with small answers, suggesting that the international community remains in the wrong frame of mind to meet such major challenges.
Read more: Forget post-2015 development goals – a global new deal is what's needed
Health in the post-2015 development agenda: need for a social determinants of health approach
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- Written by ILO, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO and UNAIDS
Joint Statement:
Available online PDF [18p.] at: http://bit.ly/Xd6yGM
“…..The UN Platform on Social Determinants of Health is an informal mechanism to provide coordinated support to Member States with implementation of the Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health.
The Platform also advocates placing the social determinants of health highly on the global development agenda, and fostering coherent action on the social determinants of health. Currently, the platform involves staff from ILO, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO and UNAIDS.
This is an informal document, and does not represent the official positions of the organizationsCorruption and the Defence Sector
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- Written by Transparency International
Seventy per cent of countries leave the door open to waste and security threats as they lack the tools to prevent corruption in the defence sector, according to the first ever index measuring how governments prevent and counter corruption in defence, released by Transparency International UK’s Defence and Security Programme.
World map of the 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, which measures “the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians”. High numbers (yellow) indicate less perception of corruption, whereas lower numbers (red) indicate higher perception of corruption
Exposing the lost billions
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- Written by Oygunn Sundsbo Brynildse/Third World Network
IN early December the coffee-shop chain Starbucks was all over the international media headlines. Citizens' movements in the UK found it unfair that their local coffee shop had to pay taxes while multinational Starbucks got away without any tax contributions. Following public campaigning, Starbucks agreed to pay 'a significant amount of tax' over the next two years.1
This case is a telling example of how rich corporations, with the help of good lawyers, accountants and complex company structures, can shift their profits to countries in which taxes are low or absent. Google and Amazon are other giant companies whose tax-dodging practices have made it to the headlines.
What is less covered by international media and public debate are the billions of dollars illicitly flowing from developing countries to the Global North every year. These lost billions are the result of the same tax-dodging mechanisms. It is paradoxical that while many European countries are struggling with tight budgets and cuts in essential services, the European Union is not showing enough political will to put in place regulations that would help uncover tax dodging and make companies pay their fair share of taxes in the countries where they operate - be it in Europe or in developing countries.
The impact of health insurance for the informal sector
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- Written by Arnab Acharya et al.
vailable online at: http://bit.ly/14p2f22
“……This paper summarizes the literature on the impact of state subsidized or social health insurance schemes that have been offered, mostly on a voluntary basis, to the informal sector in low- and middle-income countries. A substantial number of papers provide estimations of average treatment on the treated effect for insured persons.
