Finance ministers from low-income Francophone countries met in Washington on 6th October 2016 to discuss financing for development with other Francophone countries. Under the aegis of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF), DFI helped convene this meeting in the margins of the Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.

Chaired by Mr. Abdoul Aziz TALL, Minister in the Presidency for the Plan Senegal Emergent, and co-chaired by Mr. François Maurice Gervais RAKOTOARIMANANA, Minister of Finance and Budget of Madagascar; and Mr. Ousmane Alamine MEY, Minister of Finance of Cameroon, the meeting was an opportunity for LIC ministers to take stock of work in 2015-2016 among Francophone countries to analyse how to finance their development and on domestic resource mobilisation.

DFI was commissioned by UNESCO to provide a background paper and case studies which were used for the new Global Education Monitoring Report. This publication series provides independent monitoring and reporting of the Sustainable Development Goal on education (SDG 4) and on education in the other SDGs, for the next fifteen years.

The 2016 instalment entitled “Education for People and Planet: Creating Sustainable Futures for All” aims to bring insight for governments and policymakers to monitor and accelerate progress towards SDG 4.

Despite stable overall public spending figures, DRC’s expenditure in some key social sectors as percentage of total expenditure has declined from 2014 to 2015, notably in health and agriculture. GSW’s latest country spending summary highlights DRC’s shift of budgetary priorities in an election year where government spending seems to be reoriented towards public order and security, and infrastructure projects. 

Brussels-based organisation Eurodad has published a discussion paper which analyses the evolving nature of debt in developing countries and investigates currently available solutions for change. In a context where developing country debt is increasing, despite taking a relative downward path between 2000 and 2010, this report aims to figure out the reasons behind this debt burden increase, analyse the risk of new debt crises and to examine the changing nature of the type of debt countries are now facing. It also makes recommendations for sustainable and progressive solutions to prevent further debt crises and to improve policy processes of crisis resolution and management.

DFI and OIF helped prepare and facilitate a session at the Caucus of African Governors of the IMF and World Bank, held in Cotonou, analysing how to enhance the role of the BWIs in assisting African governments with revenue mobilisation.

The session discussed the role of the two institutions in providing policy advice, technical assistance and capacity-building support, as well as the potential for the World Bank to stop asking for tax exemptions on World Bank and especially IFC projects, and for it to drop the Doing Business tax sub-criterion which encourages cuts in corporate tax rates. The conclusions of the meeting were incorporated into a Memorandum by African governors, to be discussed with Managing Director Lagarde and President Kim in October.

DRI chaired a plenary Development Cooperation Forum session as part of the UN ECOSOC meeting of the High-Level Political Forum on the SDGs. The subject of the session was how to monitor the contribution of private and blended development cooperation, and broader private flows, to progress on the SDGs. The session was based on a background report written by DFI for the DCF, and discussed how the effectiveness and impact of these flows could be assessed, and how to overcome financial, political and technical barriers to achieving this.

Stakeholders from the official and private sector all agreed that this should be a priority going forward and undertook to participate in further discussions during the next 2016-18 phase of the DCF.

DFI spoke at the Houses of Parliament in a session of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA UK) conference entitled “Parliamentary Financial Oversight of Aid Effectiveness”. The event gathered parliamentarians from all Commonwealth countries to discuss the role of Parliaments in holding developing countries’ governments and donors accountable for results from aid.

The presentation highlighted the progress made by some developing countries in building accountability through aid policies and capacity-building support to parliaments, but also suggested that further progress will be difficult because donor support for aid effectiveness has waned. It was based on a background study written for the Inter-Parliamentary Union available here.

On 30 June -1 July, Kyoto welcomed the inaugural meeting of the ‘inclusive framework’, a new body allowing interested countries and jurisdictions to implement Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) measures in a harmonised manner.

Under the auspices of the OECD’s Committee on Fiscal Affairs, the event gathered representatives of more than 80 countries at various stages of development and of international organisations and regional fiscal bodies. Their work focused on the manners in which to implement the measures which came out of the OECD’s BEPS Project, and which were endorsed in November 2015 by the G20 leaders at the Antalya Summit.

DFI took part in the first meeting of a civil society advisory panel on Social Spending in IMF Programmes, which will input into the redesign of IMF conditionality related to social spending.

IMF staff and panelists discussed the scope of the review, including the sectors to be covered, the need to take account of broader IMF work on inequality and therefore to look at comprehensive education, health and social protection coverage, and the successes and failures of existing conditionalities such as indicative social spending floors. They also contributed ideas on existing analysis including the GSW reports and database, as well as names of other experts for the reviewers to contact. Further meetings will be held, culminating in a public discussion at the BWI Annual Meetings in October.

DFI chaired a session at a Commonwealth meeting on “Perspectives on the Panama Papers”, looking at the current efforts being made to combat illicit financial flows by sharing information among countries and citizens. Panelists debated the role of “tax havens” in developed and developing countries and discussed a series of measures which small island developing states and UK crown dependencies in particular could take to contribute to global tax transparency and accountability. The outcome statement from the event is available here.

To coincide with the seminar, the Commonwealth published this report on the impact of anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CFT) regulations in Commonwealth Developing Countries.