Quantifying Illicit Financial Flows from Africa through Trade Mispricing and Assessing their Incidence on African Economies
- South Africa: African Development Bank 2013
- 33p
Capital flights from developing countries have increased tremendously in the last decade. A large portion of these flows occurs via illicit means. Kar and Cartwright (2010) estimated such illicit financial flows from Africa to about USD 854 billion, between 1970 and 2008. This cumulative amount is considerable and equivalent to nearly all the official development aid (ODA) received by Africa during the 39 year period Kar and Cartwright (2010). From a different perspective, only one-third of the loss associated with IFF would have been enough to fully cover the continent’s external debt that reached USD 279 billion in 2008 (UNECA, 2009). Such phenomenon takes even more importance as Africa is deepening its regional integration and critically needs to implement costly reforms to ensure the integration process is effective.
