The African Union (AU) Cooperation Office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), in co-operation with the Department of Economic Affairs of the Africa Union (AUC) and the African Development Bank (AfDB), convened an Independent Expert Meeting on Finance, Monetary Affairs, Economic Planning and Integration, which took take place in Addis Ababa, on April 9-10, 2018.
This meeting provided a forum for independent experts, drawn from African civil society and academia, to discuss challenges and propose solutions concerning three thematic areas:
- Domestic resource mobilization,
- The fight against corruption and
- The fight against illicit financial flows (IFFs).
In addition, the meeting developed recommendations, which fed into the subsequent Ministerial meeting (Specialized Technical Committee Meeting), which took place at the AUC HQ on April 16-17, 2018.
In attendance from GATJ were Dereje Alemayehu, the Executive Coordinator, and Caroline Othim, the Policy and Campaigns Coordinator for Africa, as facilitators and moderators of some of the sessions.
GATJ’s regional network member Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA) was also represented by Alvin Mosioma, the Executive Director, and Farah Nguegan (Communications, Campaigns and Outreach Manager) with an aim to influence policy at the regional level. Further to this, TJNA developed talking points to emphasize at the meeting.
The sessions were structured on the following topics:
- Strengthening the financial system for development,
- Domestic policies for tackling corruption,
- International cooperation on tackling corruption,
- Tackling tax-related illicit financial flows,
- Anti-money laundering,
- Counter financing of terrorism
- Tackling trade mis-invoicing.
You can read a media article and TJNA press release from the meeting.