More than 100 participants from across the globe met virtually today to share their experiences in measuring and Curbing Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs). Africa, being at the fore front of the efforts of curbing IFFs building from the legacy of the AU-ECA High Level Panel on IFFs, was well represented in the webinar with over 30 experts from national statistical offices and fiscal and financial policy-oriented agencies (Central banks, Financial Intelligence Units, Tax authorities, Ministries of Finance and Planning etc.) joining the virtual forum.
Development Account project (DA 15) “Measuring and Curbing Illicit Financial Flows”.
The United Nations has set aside funds to support the estimation of IFFs and to advance appropriate policies to be put in place by governments to deal with these flows under a new development account project DA15. Key deliverables of this project are the production of estimates of illicit financial flows and evidence- based policy responses to effectively curb them. This project will be implemented by regional commissions and the IFFs measurement custodian agencies, UNCTAD and UNODC.
Prior to the official kick-off workshop for the project, ECA, in partnership with UN Regional Commissions (RCs), organised this regional webinar on measuring and curbing IFFs to set the scene, exchange ideas, and gauge expectations of the stakeholders involved in the upcoming DA 15 project.
The webinar has achieved the following intended objectives:
1. Raising awareness on the DA15 project, its expected objectives and impacts
2. Securing buy-in and collaboration agreement from national statisticians, policy makers and other relevant stakeholders. All represented countries have expressed enthusiasm and commitments to working towards the objectives of the DA15 project.
3. Peer learning opportunities to share current lessons and experiences in measuring IFFs and how they can feed into the DA15 project. Experiences from previous work on IFFs measurement exercises were shared and lessons learned exchanged between different regions. It was particularly highlighted that complementing measurement work with evidence-based policy responses to curb IFF is important. It is against this background that the DA15 project, in addition to deepening the statistical capacity of countries to measure IFFs, will aim at enhancing capacity of policy makers to develop evidence-based policies to curb IFFs.
Participants indicated that evidence-based policy measures will be developed and implemented through:
(i) Development and implementation of tools to identify threats and risks emerging from different sources such as policy environment, institutional set up and legal and regulatory frameworks; and
(ii) Design evidence-based policies in responses to the identified threats and risks
Participants were informed about the upcoming kick-off workshop, scheduled to take place in Geneva, from 20th to 21st September 2023. Participating countries agreed to nominate two representatives of respective National Technical Working Groups on IFFs who would physically attend the kick off workshop.
The webinar was an excellent opportunity to ensure common understanding of expectations from the DA15 and clearly the project was received with greater enthusiasm by different stakeholders. Participating countries have expressed their commitments to work towards effective achievement of the DA15’s expected outcomes of improving statistical capacity for measuring IFFs and policy environment for effective curbing of IFFs.