This is a joint post with Owen Barder.
In January, David Cameron nailed his colours to the mast with a speech in Davos that set out the three Ts agenda for the UK’s chairing of the June G8 meeting: taxes, trade and transparency. Since then, there has been much discussion of how serious the agenda is and what the G8 can actually deliver.
As attention shifts from traditional foreign aid to private and domestic sources of finance for development, recovering stolen assets is not only a matter of justice but increasingly a development issue in its own right. That’s why organizations like the StAR initiative (a joint effort of the World Bank and UNODC) and NGOs like Transparency International and Global Witness have been making these points and successfully pushing the agenda.
News broke on April 9th of agreement between the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain to pilot “multilateral automatic tax information exchange.” In France, President Hollande went further – announcing a draft law aimed at ‘moralising’ French public life, as former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac was expelled from the governing party for repeatedly denying the existence of his Swiss bank account.
Last week saw a series of news stories break around the world, in what may have been the largest ever cross-border journalistic collaboration. The stories, coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), are based on a major leak of files from company formation agents operating primarily in the British Virgin Islands and the Cook Islands.
An obscure reference to reforming the taxation of multinationals in the UK budget speech might be more important for developing countries than the big increase in aid that was announced at the same time. Mandatory ‘combined reporting’ by multinationals could enable countries to tax multinationals properly.
In the context of fraught negotiations and funding gaps, demand for climate finance transparency is often a diplomatic way of saying ‘show me the money’. As Ban Ki-moon said at the UNFCCC climate conference in Doha last December, a transparent long-term roadmap of financial commitment “is a matter of credibility of member states and an issue from which we can give a sense of hope.”
Aaron Swartz, who died on January 11th, worked and fought for key freedoms of our time: the right to information, to share knowledge and ideas, and to speak freely.
Christmas came early yesterday for anyone interested in seeing more effective and accountable aid, with an announcement from DFID which has raised the bar for aid transparency.
In 2011, the British Department for International Development undertook a thorough review of how it allocated money to 43 multilateral organisations ranging from the World Bank to the Commonwealth Secretariat. The Multilateral Aid Review was intended to improve both the value for money of Britains multilateral aid, and the transparency and accountability of aid spending.