Tackling Illicit Financial Flows From and Within Africa Bokosi, F. K. and Chikumbu, T. Tax Havens, Illicit Wealth, Money Laundering, Natural Resources Following the 2015 report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, chaired by the former South African President Thabo Mbeki, there has been much greater awareness across Africa of the magnitude of illicit financial flows and their implications. Now policy makers from national, regional and global levels must address the core issues surrounding illicit financial flows, which reduce Africa’s ability to finance its development: unfavourable natural-resource governance models, tax avoidance and tax havens, as well as weak national financial institutions. These illicit resource outflows reduce the total development resource base, and governments are forced to plug the gap with higher taxes that disproportionately fall on the poorest in society, as well as austerity measures that constrain the provision of public goods and services. South Africa African Civil Society 2015 2015 Text 5p. iffoadatabase.trustafrica.org/iff/afrodad.pdf