"Africa can better manage its vast natural resource wealth to improve the lives of the region’s people by setting out bold national agendas for strengthening transparency and accountability. However, international tax avoidance and evasion, corruption, and weak governance represent major challenges. [There's] a shared agenda for change:
- African governments must improve their governance and strengthen national capacity to manage extractive industries as part of a broader economic and developmental strategy
- African governments should put transparency and accountability at the heart of natural resource policies, secure a fair share of natural resource revenue for their citizens, and spread the benefits of this revenue via equitable public spending;
- The international community should build on the US Dodd-Frank Act and comparable EU legislation to develop a global standard for transparency and disclosure, develop a credible and effective multilateral response to tax evasion and avoidance, and tackle money laundering and anonymous shell companies;
- International business should follow best practices on transparency, help build national capacity, procure more products and services locally, and raise standards in all areas of corporate accountability and responsibility;
- Civil society should build capacity and continue to hold governments and companies to account.
10 May 2013
Equity in Extractives ~ Africa Progress Report '13
Africa Progress Panel releases 2013 report Equity in Extractives...