Financing for whose Development?
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- Written by Mathieu Vervynckt/Eurodad
- Category: Analysis
The Third UN Conference on Financing for Development (FfD), set to take place in Addis Ababa next year, will be a crucial opportunity to discuss two of the hottest topics in development finance today: the use of scarce public resources to leverage the private sector, and the fight against international tax avoidance and evasion. Both topics come together in Eurodad’s new report, Going Offshore, though probably not in the way you might expect.
On the risks of 'blended finance'
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- Written by Aldo Caliari
- Category: Analysis
In a recently-released human rights audit of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Finance’s report (hereinafter “the Report”), RightingFinance (RF) evaluated from the perspective of international human rights law principles such as equality, participation and maximum available resources, the portions of the report devoted to private finance. The emphasis placed on “blended finance,” alongside investment climate issues and regulation of private investments were important issues that the response by RightingFinance addressed.
EU-Commission Juncker on LuxLeaks
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- Written by Sven Giegold
- Category: News
EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker just concluded his press conference. Sven Giegold, financial and economic spokesperson for the Greens in the European Parliament, comments:
"The measures Mr. Juncker sketched out against tax avoidance are insufficient. He holds firm to defend tax competition within the EU. It is a step forward that Jean-Claude Juncker makes an effort to establish automatic information exchange on tax rulings and a common basis for corporate taxation, yet it is not ambitious enough. He still ignores country specific tax transparency and minimum tax rates. Tax competition without minimum tax rates and a social market economy do not fit together. A common basis for corporate taxation will not stop the race to the bottom, unless minimum tax rates are implemented.
IMF response to financial crisis: 'mixed results' says its own evaluation office
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- Written by IMF/IEO
- Category: Documents
In a remarkable report of the independent internal evaluation office of the IMF, an analysis is made of the way the institution reacted to the financial crisis, and more particularly in the context of the EU. The call for fiscal consolidation as from 2010 was 'premature' the authors say.
EU and FTT : getting closer
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- Written by Andrew Rosthorn/Tribune
- Category: News
EU finance ministers have edged closer on an international tax on financial transactions.
After the monthly meeting of EU finance ministers on November 7, the Italian finance minister Pietro Carlo Padoan told reporters that there had beengood progress in both the criteria and the identification of items that would be subject to the tax.
Luxembourg Leaks: Company's Secret Tax Deals
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- Written by ICIJ
- Category: Analysis
The landlocked European duchy has been called a “magical fairyland” for brand-name corporations seeking to drastically reduce tax bills.
Pepsi, IKEA, FedEx and 340 other international companies have secured secret deals from Luxembourg, allowing many of them to slash their global tax bills while maintaining little presence in the tiny European duchy, leaked documents show.
World Bank Worries
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- Written by Nancy Birdsall/CGD
- Category: Analysis
For the first time in its seven-decade-long history, World Bank staff staged a work stoppage earlier this month. Staff are unhappy about the “Change Process,” aka the ongoing internal reorganization that President Kim initiated on his arrival at the bank now more than two years ago. A Staff Association update of October 9 says: “We are riding a bicycle as we build it, and staying upright is getting harder and harder.”*
The reorganization process is the first of my two big worries about the World Bank.
The second is more troubling: The bank is well past its heyday as a major supplier of funds to developing countries. Short of a new vision, it faces an existential threat of growing irrelevance and obscurity as rising incomes in big emerging markets reduce the demand for and logic of the bank’s country loan model. I believe the world still needs a World Bank. But it needs a World Bank built for the development challenges of the 21st century, not the 20th.
Climate talks ... and talks ... and talks
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- Written by IPCC
- Category: Documents
The IPCC has published its fifth assessment report, repeating the urgent need to cut CO2 emissions if we want to stop the worst of climate change.
Stop deforestation, stop dirty energy, change unsustainable consumption and production patterns ... we all know it, when will it happen?
Need for rights-based approach to food security
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- Written by Kanaga Raja
- Category: Analysis
It is imperative that a Human Rights-based approach to food security is adopted in order to eliminate hunger and provide access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food for all, the new UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Ms Hilal Elver, has said.
In her first report to the UN General Assembly (A/69/275), which is holding its sixty-ninth session in New York, the rights expert, who is from Turkey, said that in order to advance the implementation of the right to adequate food, renewed political commitment is essential and stakeholders must look to those countries that have made significant progress in adopting policies and legislation in this regard.
Trade unions and campaigners slam “strongly flawed” Doing Business report
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- Written by Eurodad
- Category: Analysis
Campaigners and citizens groups are questioning why the World Bank is still planning to release its Doing Business Report (DBR) tomorrow (Wednesday) even though officials have failed to fix ‘strong flaws’ which undermine its goals to eliminate absolute poverty and promote shared prosperity.
Read more: Trade unions and campaigners slam “strongly flawed” Doing Business report
GFI Notes Significant Progress on Automatic Information Exchange but Warns that Poorest Countries Are Being Shunned
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- Written by GFI
- Category: Analysis
While noting significant progress today in the global effort to curb tax evasion, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) expressed concerns that the OECD/G20 movement toward automatic exchange of financial information was excluding the world’s poorest countries from reaping any benefits while failing to deal with the issue of illicit financial flows in a comprehensive manor.
