The Common African Position on Asset Recovery, CAPAR, Illicit Financial Flows, IFFs, Africa’s natural resources management, and the implementation of the AU Mining Vision will take the centre stage of this year’s Citizens Forum in Accra, Ghana.
A session at the Citizens Forum themed “Towards a Coordinated and Coherent African Response to Illicit Financial Flows, Corruption and Natural Resources Management” will be held on July 19, 2024 at the Kempinski Hotel, Accra, Ghana.
The disclosure is contained in a joint press statement signed by the organisers – Ms. Souad Aden-Osman, Executive Director of the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa, CoDA, and Head of Secretariat of the African Union High Level Panel on IFFs from Africa; Mr. William Carew, Principal Coordinator and Head of Secretariat, African Union Economic Social and Cultural Council (AU ECOSOCC), and Ms. Charity Hanene Nchimunya, Executive Secretary of the African Union Advisory Board Against Corruption, AUABC.
The organisers explained that this year’s Citizens Forum is part of the determined and continued efforts to consolidate Africa’s response against illicit financial flows, democratic decline and corruption.
The statement reads in part: “This year’s forum will highlight democracy and institutional resilience, consisting of six plenaries and three thematic sessions. The Forum will see more than 500 participants from all over Africa.
“With one of the thematic sessions focusing on illicit financial flows, corruption and natural resources management, CoDA is collaborating with AU ECOSOCC and AUABC to highlight continental processes, instruments and challenges for containing illicit outflows, corruption and unfair extraction of natural resources.
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“The session will shed light on the progress that Africa has made in the last nine years, since the publication of the Mbeki Report, and recent steps taken, such as the endorsement by African Heads of State of the Common African Position on Asset Recovery (CAPAR), the adoption of the UN Declaration on Global Tax Reform, and ongoing reforms of the international financial institutions (IFIs). Further, the session will look into the journey since the launching of the African Mining Vision (AMV).”
The Head of Secretariat of AU High Level Panel on IFFs from Africa, Ms. Souad Aden-Osman disclosed that the scourge of illicit financial flows had remained and also had become more pressing since the publication of a comprehensive assessment of the state, magnitude, channels, and impact of illicit financial flows (IFFs) from Africa by the Thabo Mbeki-led-AU High Level Panel.
She stated, “Although Africa has come a long way since then, the need to create the necessary policy, institutional, and legal instruments to contain the scourge of IFFs remains and is even becoming more pressing.
“Latest reports by different institutions show that IFFs from Africa has actually increased to close to 100 billion USD per annum, with a large part of it coming from commercial activities. And the extractives sector, which contributes around 70% of Africa’s intermediate exports, sits at the centre of the problem.”
