Illicit Financial Flows, (IFF) has been a key marker of the African protest at the way the world order works. The African Union/Economic Commission for Africa panel that examined it in 2011 has exposed all that everyone needs to know about how it works. It has drawn attention to the paradox whereby the amount of illicit flows out of the continent in the first 50 years of the independence of most African states is almost the same amount it has received in Official Development Assistance, (ODA). Yet, there is no let.
The centres of power in the global order such as those who produced this map knows everything about IFF
As the Marxists would say, the High Level Panel may have interpreted IFF, the point is to stop it
It is not surprising that the 2019 IMF/World Bank annual meetings is a beehive of activities by global civil society, incuding some from Nigeria, on the move against illicit financial flows. In particular, the Abuja based Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, (CISLAC) is up there in Washington D.C. networking and organising side events, one of which was a panel of discussants on “Public Register of Beneficial Ownership to check Illicit Financial Flows”.
From there comes the picture here. It shows (L-R) Patricia Moreira, Managing Director of Transparency International, (TI); Mallam Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, Executive Director, CISLAC and Thom Town who moderated the panel discussion hosted by CISLAC.
In the post Cold War, the global civil society has succeeded where nation states have failed. Remember what the global civil society did on dams across the world, the ban on personnel landmines and the setting up of the International Criminal Court, (ICC),(even as controversial as it has turned out to be). So, global civil society deepening its work on illicit financial flows may be something to watch!
