With the Northern African revolutions still going on, an interesting - though rhetoric - question is emerging. Could all the money of the African dictators help to solve the poverty problem in their continent?
“The Finance Ministers have failed to grasp the depths of the global jobs crisis, with world unemployment of at least 205 million and a whole generation of young people facing a lifetime of unemployment or underemployment. The G20 leaders need to send them back to the drawing board to come up with real initiatives to create jobs, and indicators on which success can be measured,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.
Read more: ITUC disappointed in G20 Finance Ministers meeting
An ILO and UNDP publication on 18 succesful experiences with a social protection floor.
20th February is the Global Day of Social Justice. Read ...
(Source: IPS/Other News)
ad governance and the persistence of the tax avoidance industry allow billions of dollars of profit to be siphoned out of Africa, untaxed, every year.
For the past 25 years, tax revenues in most African countries have missed even the low target of 15 percent of gross domestic product, far less than rich countries' average of 35 percent, according to a recent report of the Tax Justice Network's Africa section.
Read more: AFRICA: Billions Lost to State Coffers Due to Tax Leniency
The World Bank and the IMF formally recognise tax avoidance and tax evasion as a critical problem for developing countries' domestic resource mobilisation. The Bank's public position on tax evasion and tax havens does not however identify concrete measures to stop investing in companies practicing tax avoidance. The IMF addresses tax policy under its surveillance mandate and in its technical assistance, but does not have an explicit framework or clear approach to deal with tax evasion.
The Lisbon Treaty
The Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF just published its report on the reasons why the International Monetary Fund did not see the emerging crisis in 2007 and 2008. Why did it not detect the vulnerabilities of the financial and economic system? 'The findings of the report are the stuff of a 'psychodrama', says co-author Biagio Bossone.
Read...
Global Day of Action in support of the Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) on 17 February 2011, the eve of a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Paris.
The history of aid shows an inverse relationship between aid on the one hand and the policy space and the level of economic growth of recipient governments on the other. That is, when aid levels rise, there are more policy conditions imposed on recipient governments by donors, which reduces "policy space" or the autonomy of governments to design policies and respond to the policy priorities of citizens.
Read more: The Financial Transaction Tax: A means to aid reform and universal social protection?
