“The African Union (AU) and Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) High Level Panel (HLP) on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) from Africa has made some strides by initiating series of meeting and engagement with key stakeholders’ in order to stem the flow of IFFs from Africa,” said H.E. Thabo Mbeki, former South Africa president and chair of the AU/ECA HLP on IFFs, at the inaugural meeting of the Consortium to Stem IFFs from Africa. The meeting took place at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 13 to 14 June 2016.
The inaugural meeting was to provide an overall strategic direction for efforts to reduce IFFs from Africa. It was a follow-up to previous stakeholder workshops on the Implementation of the recommendations of the HLF Report on IFFs from Africa organized by the ECA in 2015.
As Co-organizer, H.E Dr. Anthony Maruping, Commissioner for Economic Affairs at the African Union Commission stated that the Consortium to Stem IFFs is to serve as a multi-stakeholder platform for leveraging the partnerships established among stakeholders since the release of the High Level Panel Report.
Dr. Maruping also stated that the meeting was to allow global and regional stakeholders from the public and private sectors, civil society and academia to review the Anti-IFF Project Document and to discuss strategies for its implementation. In the same vein, he said that a draft version of the annual report on progress made towards stemming IFFs in Africa will be presented to the Consortium, ahead of the African Union Summit to be held in July 2016.
According to Dr. Abdalla Hamdok, Deputy Executive Secretary of UNECA, the scourge of IFFs is a paradox that the poor of the world is subsidizing to rich countries to the tune of over USD80 billion. Based on the special declaration of the African Heads of States on IFFs, this has put pressure on the HLP group to bring in a wide range of partnership so that the recommendations can be implemented.
Dr. Hamdok said that all actors with expertise are to join hands in the establishment of the Consortium. He stressed on the commitment shown at the highest level and the need to work on generating and disseminating research on IFFs as well as strengthening institutions due to paucity of capacity at the national level. Onus is to create space for everyone to join in and to support a media campaign and galvanizing action to stem IFFs. He concluded by listing the organisations who had voluntarily joined the Consortium. The UNECA is the secretariat for the Consortium.
The ACBF Executive Secretary, Prof Emmanuel Nnadozie, reiterated on the need to focus on capacity retention and utilization in the course of implementing the work plan of the Consortium. He stated that emphasis would need to be placed on the soft capacities as well as mind-sets of countries in stemming IFFs and that ACBF is ready to partner with institutions in the Consortium to particularly assist countries in the area of capacity building which is already elaborated in the new ACBF Strategic Plan (2017 – 2021).
The inaugural meeting was convened by the Secretariat of the High Level Panel on IFFs with a view of initiating a streamlined collaboration of global efforts for tackling IFFs in general, and, in particular, establishing a coherent approach for implementing the recommendations of the High Level Panel Report on IFFs from Africa.
The Secretariat of the HLP hosted at UNECA has taken the lead to initiate a framework of strong collaboration and consistent engagement between African governments, African institutions and their development partners on the process of stemming illicit financial flows. The ECA has also created a forum where all relevant stakeholders discus the implementation of a work plan as well as the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder in the process.
The Stakeholders Workshop brought together representatives from the ECA, AUC, UNDP, ACBF, Thabo Mbeki Foundation, South Africa Treasury, NEPAD, African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), African Mineral Development Centre (AMDC), OECD, Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU), Tax Justice Network (TJN-A), CSOs, development partners and other relevant stakeholders like the Pan African Parliamentary Network on IFF and Tax Justice (APNIFFT), the Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI) and the Open Society Initiative- West Africa (OSIWA).
