The ability to identify and monitor illicit financial flows (IFFs) remains a critical gap for countries in Africa, impeding effective surveillance and required efforts to curb these flows. Combatting IFFs, is now a crucial component of global efforts to promote peace, justice, and strong institutions, as reflected in target 16.4 of the Sustainable Development Goals: “By 2030, significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organized crime”. To measure progress towards achieving this target, Indicator 16.4.1: “Total value of inward and outward illicit financial flows (in current United States dollars)” was adopted and has informed the work under a collaborative Development Account project between the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in collaboration with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), on Defining, estimating, and disseminating statistics on illicit financial flows in Africa. Over a period of two years, 12 countries have been involved in piloting-testing the methodologies for estimating IFFs at country level, forming technical working groups constituting several government agencies responsible for addressing IFFs, to facilitate this effort.
In this context, the UNECA and UNCTAD are jointly organizing a closing Conference of this project at the UN Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 15 to 17 June 2022. The Conference will bring together representatives of technical working groups from the 12 countries (Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Zambia) to share their experiences and lessons learnt in measuring IFFs. This conference will also discuss the way forward and country support needed towards measuring SDG Indicator 16.4.1 in the future and inform efforts to curb IFFs, featuring perspectives from the African Union Commission, the African Tax Administration Forum, the African Development Bank, the Tax Justice Network-Africa and the African Union High Level Panel on IFFs, UNCTAD and UNECA. This will be a hybrid event with participants joining in person, and virtually from within and outside the Africa region.
For details, contact
Mr. Gamal Ibrahim gamal.ibrahim@un.org
Chief, Economic Governance and Public Finance Section
Macroeconomics and Governance Division
Documents