Stop the Bleeding Campaign to be launched June 25, 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya
Interim Working Group (IWG) of the African Illicit Financial Flow (IFF) Campaign Platform comprising six Pan –African organisations will on June 25,2015 launch a unified African campaign platform on Illicit Financial Flows in Nariobi, Kenya.
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The campaign dubbed, “Stop the Bleeding” is supported by the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ).
The organisations include Tax Justice Network-Africa (TJN-A), Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Af), Africa Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), the African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa) and Trust Africa.
About the campaign
With its main goal aimed at stopping IFFs from Africa, the launch aspires to implement one Africa’s campaign on IFFs that is led and driven by African civil society organisations with support from other partners including international non-governmental organisations (INGOs).
As a follow up to the public launch of the Campaign in June, a side event will be held on the margins of the upcoming third Financing for Development Conference (FfD3) in July at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The side event will introduce the Africa IFF campaign, re-emphasise the importance of implementing the recommendations contained in the “Mbeki HLP report”, and highlight some of the joint plans that Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and other African institutions such as the African Union and UNECA have been undertaken to push for the implementation of the “Mbeki HLP report”.
The side event will target African delegations, CSOs, African institutions and agencies present at the FfD3 conference.
It will also feature a panel session comprising representatives from the African Union Commission, Africa Group delegation, Economic Commission and civil society.
Background
Africa loses about US$50 billion each year through illicit activities of multinational companies and rich individuals.
These resources, if retained in the continent, could be invested in productive sectors of these economies to lift Africa’s growing population from under-development and poverty.
According to the African Union/Economic Commission for Africa High Level Panel (HLP) on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa report, the continent lost about one trillion dollars (US$1 trillion) between 1980 and 2008.
IFFs from Africa in real terms mean loss of jobs, income, decent education, health facilities and other basic infrastructure critical to structurally transform the economy of countries in Africa and the socio-economic conditions of Africans.
According to the High Level Panel’s report, the major perpetrators of IFFs from Africa are multinational companies, especially those operating in Africa’s extractive sector, mostly in oil, gas and mining.
These activities, according to the report, pose a major threat to sustainable development and security across the continent.
The HLP report recommended 15 solutions African countries must implement to curtail IFFs from the continent and it is against this backdrop that the Interim Working Group (IWG) of the African IFF Campaign Platform are launching the unified campaign platform to fight IFFs.