How much aid does China give Africa? Does it complement or undermine the aid from the United States and other Western donors? China releases little information and outside estimates vary widely.

A novel approach to studying Chinese aid flows relies on a database drawing upon thousands of news reports on Chinese-backed projects in Africa from 2000 to 2011.

We, the co-authors, are not claiming that the database is fully comprehensive. We understand that some projects may not get picked up by the media.

Further analysis of the media reports of Chinese-backed projects may eventually yield insights into the extent Chinese assistance to the region is focused on natural resource extraction, and whether Chinese activities complement or compete with assistance from other donors.

Read more…

Recent years have seen a growing interest on taxation in developing countries among aid agencies. This reflects a concern for raising domestic revenues to finance public goods and services.

It also represents a recognition of the centrality of taxation for growth and redistribution. However, efforts to broaden the tax base are intimately connected to the quality of government expenditure.

Aid to taxation can be grouped into three broad working areas: (1) strengthen tax policy and design; (2) build more effective tax administrations; and (3) encourage constructive state-society engagement around taxes.

This article discusses experiences with donor support to strengthen tax systems in developing countries and challenges in scaling up donor efforts, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

Read more…

Illegal transactions of wealth out of developing countries is estimated to equal 3-5 times total global aid flows from all donor countries, or 6-8 times total Norwegian foreign aid over the past 50 years.

The amounts evaporating into the pockets of wealthy and influential African leaders and their families as corruption each year exceed by far the total aid from all donors to the region.

Nordic aid has been distributed to around 100 of the world’s poorest countries for more than 50 years, with surprisingly modest impact on income and wealth inequality in the recipient countries.

The Nordic countries should keep a zero corruption vision and work pro-actively to fulfil it by reallocating a considerable share of their aid budgets to anti-corruption activities.

Read more…

If protecting human rights could be translated into a single political action, the creation of comprehensive social protection schemes would be it. Yet many of the world’s poorer states have not adopted anything like a comprehensive social safety net.

States can no longer claim to believe in human rights protection while failing to invest in social protection, for the two are intimately linked. There are many ways and means of funding a decent social safety net – now we need the political will.

One obvious problem with the global proposal is the lack of discussion on how it could be funded. You would probably need to put together all the proposals for international taxation to pull it off.

What kind of political coalition is going to do that? Politically, doing an Alaska at national level looks a lot more realistic.

Read more…

Every year approximately 850-1000 billion US dollars escape developing countries as illicit financial flows, with a large proportion ending up in tax havens or rich countries.

If these funds were taxed in the source countries, they would provide these developing country governments much greater revenues than the total official global development assistance (ODA).

Tax evasion and aggressive tax planning are global issues that affect rich EU and OECD countries as well as developing countries negatively. This calls for global solutions.

If the Nordic countries join forces in tackling tax havens and tax avoidance they have the potential to be true global leaders in this area. And we definitely need a group of countries to push hard on the agenda if we aim to succeed.

Read more…

The new documentary ‘Stealing Africa’ reveals a troubling subject. It shows how enormous resources are being stolen from people who have the greatest need for them. And thus,our aid is being counteracted by global corporate tax dodging.

The amount of total illicit financial outflows from developing countries is around 1 trillion dollars per year, ten times more than global official aid. Tax dodging accounts for over 60 per cent of these outflows.

The Swedish Government has long neglected this problem. However, in its latest communication on Policy for Global Development the government has highlighted the problem.

This should be a starting point for Sweden to work for a strong EU legislation based on the proposals from the European Parliament and to show that Sweden wants to change the situation and act.

Read more…

The discovery of oil under Lake Nyasa/Malawi holds great promise for one of the poorest countries in the world. Malawi has the opportunity to take the road less travelled: that of transparency, accountability and shared prosperity.

If President Banda and her cabinet get it right, Malawi could act as a leading light for those others in the region that are being swept along in the gold rush. If they get it wrong, the consequences will be dire not just for the country, but the region as a whole.

The oil under Malawian territory does not belong to politicians, oil executives or militia men, but to the people of Malawi. Banda and her government have a duty to ensure ordinary Malawians see the benefits of this wealth, but the buck does not stop there.

The international community must also shine a spotlight on Malawi, show no tolerance for opacity around its oil dealings, and support its leaders to allow oil wealth to be a blessing and not a curse.

Read more…

‘Equity’ is the new buzz-word in the development debate ― as if we all agree, as if it is not a controversial issue. ‘Equity’ does not only mean better access to services, or better distribution. It means RE-distribution.

It means that in order for others to get more, someone has to get less. We do ourselves a huge disservice by pretending that this is not highly political and controversial.

The aid system is about transferring money from rich to poor countries. This is still needed, but in addition, more emphasis must be put on transferring money from rich to poor people within countries.

Reduced differences within a country is important from a human rights perspective. But it is also important for security and economic reasons. Large inequalities lead to instability, risk of civil disorder and higher crime rates. It is a threat to continued economic growth.

Read more…

The regime change in Tunisia last year was led by unarmed civilians claiming their right to political freedom and a decent economic life. This set off the Arab Spring that would subsequently sweep through North Africa and the Middle East, toppling strong regimes in Libya and Egypt.

Since mid-2012 Tunisia is back in the headlines again. This time, the country is catching the media’s attention because of the tough stance taken by the new Government demanding the repudiation of debts that served the interests of the former ruling clique.

In signaling such a stand, the new Tunisian government is setting a historic precedent in Africa that would serve the interests of not only the people of indebted African nations but also those of Africa’s creditors and donors.

For Africa to win the fight against illicit financial flows it needs cooperation from overseas governments. By helping Africa keep more of its resources onshore, the global community will also reap the benefits arising from a more sustainable international financial system.

Read more…

Now that many donor countries are struggling with budgetary constraints and have little left for development support, it has become imperative to transform the rich African mineral resources into long-term sustainable development. African leaders have placed the bet to attain this objective by 2050.

Traditional development partners got the message and are making efforts to strengthen their partnership with Africa. This is to some extent, in reaction to the increasing role of emerging players in Africa.

In recent years, the debate about transforming mineral wealth into real development has gained a lot of attention, both in Africa and in Europe. Over the past two months, two high level meetings were held to discuss the issue and to agree on convergent priorities.

Given the momentum at the political level, African leaders will have to continue to champion the initiative. Expressing commitments is fine but turning good intentions into real development would require resolving some pressing and concrete challenges as necessary preconditions.

Read more…