Publications - Page 2 of 11

Eritreans Exploited: UK Corporate Complicity in Human Rights Abuses

Report for War on Want (January 2017, published online October 2017)

Eritrea’s totalitarian state is extreme and includes a ratified Constitution that hasn’t been implemented; the absence of national elections since independence from Ethiopia in 1991; its Parliament does not meet; the President, Isaisa Afwerki rules without institutional restraint; the government owns all media; and non-governmental organisations are not permitted. Much of Eritrea’s foreign exchange income comes from foreign gold and copper mining company projects in which the Eritrean government holds a 40% stake. The state control of these revenues is enhanced by the complete lack of mining revenue transparency in the country, a fact that has been persistently documented in various UN reports. There are several ways in which Britain is connected to Eritrean mining, thereby being complicit in the practices of this repressive regime. This includes not just the mining companies involved in exploration in the country, but the financial institutions that have invested in UK and other mining companies operating in Eritrea.

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Categories: Companies, Foreign Policy, Mining, UK

Increasing Global Education Financing: Bold and Credible Pledges to Achieve Sustainable Change

Briefing for Global Campaign for Education (June 2017, published online October 2017)

Developing country governments have committed to ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030, but to achieve this requires greater education spending: to at least 4-6% of GDP and 15-20% of national total budgets. Currently, low-income countries allocate an average of 16.7% of their national budgets to education (Sub-Saharan Africa 16.6%; South Asia 15.3%). UNESCO estimates that government spending on education by low-income countries will need to increase by 50% as a share of GDP by 2030. Governments can and must increase resources allocated to education, and ensure that this funding is spent equitably and effectively to secure the right to free, quality education. This briefing analyses why and how they should do this. Domestic resources to finance this extra education spending can be found. In particular, developing countries should expand their tax bases in progressive ways to ensure that they are raising at least 20% of their GDP in tax revenues. Currently, low-income countries raise on average around 16%, compared to around 33% in OECD countries.

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Categories: Aid, Education, Tax

European Development Finance Institutions and Allegations of Land Grabs: The Need for Further Independent Scrutiny

Report for FERN (September 2017)

This study highlights the role of European Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) in alleged land grabs and questionable forestry projects in Africa. It documents nine such cases involving eight of the European DFIs. It raises the urgent need for more independent research into these projects and the need for much more scrutiny of the investment portfolios of the DFIs, including by the DFIs themselves and by national parliaments.

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Categories: Aid, Companies, Food & Agriculture, Other

Out of Pocket: How much are parents paying for public education that should be free?

Policy brief for ActionAid (August 2017)

According to international human rights law, primary education should be free of charge, and secondary education should be made progressively free. Yet in developing countries education is rarely entirely free: despite international obligations, many states continue to impose fees to access primary education. At the same time, families, many among the poorest in the world, have to pay the ‘indirect’ costs of education, such as for school books, uniforms or school maintenance. This briefing provides new figures on the costs incurred by parents when sending their children to school. These costs must be paid by the state, and no child should ever be denied access to education because of inability to pay the fees. Governments need to invest much more in providing a quality education for all their children – one which is truly free.

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Categories: Education

Missed Opportunity: How could funds lost to tax incentives in Africa be used to fill the education finance gap?

Policy brief for ActionAid (August 2017)

How much revenue do African governments lose from providing tax incentives, such as giving companies tax holidays and exemptions on paying taxes on import duties and value added tax? And if these precious national budget resources were set aside to fund quality, public education instead, how much greater could education spending be? This brief provides figures for revenue losses from tax incentives for several African countries. It concludes that governments in sub-Saharan Africa may be losing US$38.6 billion a year, or 2.4% of their GDP, to tax incentives. This is equivalent to nearly half (47%) of their current education spending. Having a much clearer pro-poor policy for granting incentives and using some of these resources to fund education could provide a much-needed and significant boost to education budgets across Africa.

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Categories: Education, Tax

Lost Revenues in Low Income Countries

Report with Dr Bernadette O’Hare (July 2017)

This research estimates how much revenue six low income countries – of which five are in sub Saharan Africa – are losing unnecessarily from various potential revenue streams that could be used to fund public services. Developing countries can lose revenue in a variety of ways. Here we estimate how much is being lost from the following sources:
Tax avoidance by multinational companies; Providing tax incentives (for example, reductions or exemptions from the payment of corporate taxes) which constitute government ‘tax expenditure’; Not collecting taxes from a proportion of business activity in the informal sector; Corruption in the national budget; and Debt interest payments to international creditors. The research finds that revenue losses are large in all countries, which has significant implications for development. The priorities for low income countries are to end corporate tax avoidance, reduce corruption and raise tax collections. These areas are far more important than aid inflows: The six countries under analysis are losing 6.4% – 12.9% of their GDP; In most cases, this amounts to more than the combined national health and education budgets, meaning that expenditure on these areas could more than double; Revenue losses are larger than aid in two of the six countries and over 60% of the amount of aid in a further three.

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Categories: Aid, Companies, Education, Health, Mining, Tax

Making Tax Vanish: A tax investigation into RB

Report for Oxfam (July 2017)

Curtis Research provided research for this Oxfam investigation into British consumer goods multinational, RB (Reckitt Benckiser). Big business is able to take advantage of loopholes in global tax laws and avoid tax on a massive scale. This deprives governments around the world of the money they need to tackle poverty and inequality. It means there is less for them to invest in healthcare, education and jobs. This report examines the failings of the global tax system that facilitate mass tax avoidance. It looks at one example of a multinational company that Oxfam thinks is not paying its fair share. It calls on governments and business to implement the reforms that are needed to stop MNCs from avoiding paying their fair share of tax in the future.

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Categories: Tax

Honest Accounts 2017: How the world profits from Africa’s wealth

Report for group of NGOs led by Global Justice Now, Jubilee Debt Coalition & Health Poverty Action (May 2017)

Research for this report calculates the movement of financial resources into and out of Africa and some key costs imposed on Africa by the rest of the world. We find that the countries of Africa are collectively net creditors to the rest of the world, to the tune of $41.3 billion in 2015. Thus much more wealth is leaving the world’s most impoverished continent than is entering it. African countries received $161.6 billion in 2015 – mainly in loans, personal remittances and aid in the form of grants. Yet $203 billion was taken from Africa, either directly – mainly through corporations repatriating profits and by illegally moving money out of the continent – or by costs imposed by the rest of the world through climate change.

African countries receive around $19 billion in aid in the form of grants but over three times that much ($68 billion) is taken out in capital flight, mainly by multinational companies deliberately misreporting the value of their imports or exports to reduce tax.
While Africans receive $31 billion in personal remittances from overseas, multinational companies operating on the continent repatriate a similar amount ($32 billion) in profits to their home countries each year.
African governments received $32.8 billion in loans in 2015 but paid $18 billion in debt interest and principal payments, with the overall level of debt rising rapidly.
An estimated $29 billion a year is being stolen from Africa in illegal logging, fishing and the trade in wildlife/plants.

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Categories: Aid, Companies, Mining, Tax, Trade

The One Billion Dollar Question: Revisited

Report for Norwegian Church Aid (May 2017)

In 2012, the Tanzania Episcopal Conference, National Muslim Council of Tanzania and the Christian Council of Tanzania jointly published a report written by Curtis Research which estimated that Tanzania was losing revenues of between $847 million and $1.3 billion a year from a mix of tax evasion, tax incentives and capital flight. New research presented here shows that Tanzania continues to lose a vast amount of resources every year – in fact, these losses are if anything increasing. The research estimates that Tanzania is now losing around $1.83 billion a year from tax incentives, illicit capital flight, the failure to tax the informal sector and other tax evasion. The country is losing a further $1.3 billion (TShs 2.9 trillion) from corruption in the national budget, which diverts resources away from funding critical public services.

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Categories: Mining, Tax

How governments are failing on the right to education

Report for ActionAid (April 2017)

This report is based on findings from citizens’ education reports in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Nepal, where extensive research was conducted in schools. It assesses the extent to which children, especially girls, are accessing good quality primary education. The findings, while showing some positive progress, are extremely concerning. They show that:

• Governments are not investing enough to ensure a quality education for the next generation, and are largely failing in their duty to promote the right to education.

• Governments are also largely failing to meet the education commitments they have signed up to in international fora.

• The consequence is that few children are receiving a quality education. It is girls who often lose out most: girls are more likely to be victims of violence and abuse in school, often do less well in school examinations and are enduring extremely poor school sanitation facilities that are not conducive to a quality learning environment.

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Categories: Education

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