Conference on Financing Sustainable Development ~ Illicit Financial Flows

28 Nov 2018, 08:00 → 29 Nov 2018, 18:00 Asia/Beirut

In-Person

Main Conference Hall- B1 (UN House, Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon)

Financing is the bloodline of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development. Yet, three years following the adoption of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the financing gap continues to rise unabated with trillions needed in quality investments of all kinds. Financing for development is neither happening at the pace nor magnitude that can turn conflicts, poverty, inequality and other socio-economic hardships into an issue of the past, let alone realize sustainable development through Arab common action.

To further complicate matters, illicit financial flows (IFFs) are constantly evolving outpacing detection at every corner. IFFs undermine the rule of law, distort macro-economic stability, and raise severe security complications for the Arab region. These flows constitute substantial leakages to domestic public revenues that could have otherwise been harnessed to finance national and regional efforts devoted to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

We can all conquer these challenges by addressing the weaknesses in the financing architecture, its delivery channels and infrastructure. We can work to overcome insufficient public finance and market failures across the international monetary, financing and multilateral trading systems to unleash their full financing potential, especially at a time when large sums are not being effectively channeled into sustainable, productive and financially rewarding ends.

For these reasons, the United Nations embarked upon an ambitious reform agenda to deliver on the 2030 Agenda. Based on this reform, regional commissions emerge as the United Nations development system policy backbone: a connective link between global and local levels that provides regional perspectives and analytical policy advocacy to address regional financing for development challenges and support the development of a wide range of regional norms, standards and conventions.

Equally, the launch of the United Nations Secretary-General’s new Strategy for Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2018-2019) aims to accelerate progress in three key areas: 1) aligning global financial and economic policies with the 2030 Agenda; 2) enhancing sustainable financing strategies and investments at the regional and country levels, and; 3) seizing the potential of financial innovations, new technologies and digitization to provide equitable access to finance. Of particular interest to this Conference is the application of this strategy under regional contexts and national development idiosyncrasies.

The choices we make today, and in no less measure those, based on the Conference recommendations and conclusions, will be critical for tomorrow’s financing decisions and sustainable development outcomes. It remains, nonetheless, the collective responsibility of all stakeholders to pursue concrete actions and measures to this end. We must act to ensure that we do not reach a point where corrective actions are no longer durable or are preempted as financing needs further amplify.

Conference Documents

• Concept_Note-_Conference_on_Financing_Development_~_Illicit_Financial_Flows.pdf
• Financing_Sustainable_Development_Roadmap_to_the_2019_FfD_Summit.jpg
• HR_MINI_MASTER_FORM.docx
• Logistical_Note_-_Conference_on_Financing_Sustainable_Development.pdf
• Synopsis-_UNSGs_Strategy_for_Financing_the_2030-Agenda_(2018-2021).pdf
• UN_Secretary_General_Financing_Sustainable_Development_Strategy_(2018-2021).pdf

Wednesday, 28 November

08:00 → 09:00 Registration

09:00 → 10:00 Session 1: Welcome Remarks & Opening Statements

10:00 → 10:15 Coffee Break

10:15 → 11:45 Session 2: Financing for Development : Assessing Progress, Emerging Threats & Opportunities

Three years following the adoption of the 2030 and Addis Ababa Agenda’s, the world continues to witness discernible progress across all levels of implementation of the two Agenda’s. Yet, progress to finance sustainable development is neither happening at the pace required to achieve the SDGs nor to reduce socio-economic inequalities within and across regions. Concerns are mounting over new challenges being imposed by a broad stream of factors other than those that had been contemplated at the time of adopting the two Agenda’s. The panel will deliver insights of senior policy-makers and assessments from key stakeholders on the state of financing for development (FfD). The panel will also explore pathways to overcome salient challenges and contradictions that are superimposing themselves onto regional and national financing development propensities. The panel ultimately aims to provide a case sensitive regional assessment of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.
The moderated discussion will be conducted in a free-flowing ‘Davos-style’ setting. Each panel will feature an interactive component, engaging speakers from the floor, including Member States, civil society organizations and the private sector.

11:45 → 12:00 Coffee Break

12:00 → 13:30 Session 3: Private Finance, Development Cooperation, Trade & Debt Sustainability

International public and private finance remain essential to support the provision of public goods and attain macroeconomic stability. Developing countries are witnessing a reflux in their ability to galvanize and localize international private finance as well as to incentivize long-term value approaches under prevalent risk conditions and accountability settings. Equally, a disorderly tightening of financial conditions and the adoption of inward-looking policies may lead to severe reversals in capital flows and erode trade preferences to the disadvantage of developing countries; increasing debt distress levels; tightening conditions for both trade finance and growth. High levels of trade inequality and declining private investments remain a stark reminder of the inability to align trade and investment with long-term sustainable development needs. The panel will deliver expert insights from senior policy-makers and assessments from key stakeholders on the idiosyncrasies associated with trend in private finance, international cooperation, trade & debt constituting the pillars of the new global financing for development framework.

13:30 → 15:00 Lunch Break

15:00 → 17:00 Session 4: Domestic Resource Mobilization

Domestic Resource Mobilization (DRM) constitutes a prime means to finance sustainable development. The Addis Ababa Action Agenda highlights specific actions to be taken to enhance DRM capacities, including through improved tax administration, efficient revenue collection, enhanced forms of tax compliance and cooperation as well as by eliminating illicit financial flows. Efforts to strengthen progressivity of fiscal systems, and how tax incentives are set in turn affect many concerns central to the achievement of the SDGs. However, there continues to be a persistent gap between normative dispositions and economic nuances on one hand and multilateral action on the other. The panel will deliver insights from senior policy-makers and key stakeholders on the implications of tax reforms, digitalized and inclusive tax cooperation to combat illicit financial flows.

Thursday, 29 November

09:00 → 10:30 Session 5: Illicit Financial Flows (Motives, drivers, channels of delivery and emerging challenges)

The emphasis on illicit financial flows (IFFs) as a major disabler to sustainable development is well grounded in the Addis Agenda. The latter calls onto the international community to substantially reduce IFFs, with a view to eliminating them by 2030. Commitment to combat IFFs was further upheld by SDG target (16.4). The conduits of IFFs and their delivery channels are nonetheless evolving outpacing detection at every corner. The forces influencing global interconnectivity in trade, finance, communications and transport are the very forces that continue to drive IFFs to remain ahead of the curve both in sophistication and use of technology. The panel will deliver expert insights from senior policy-makers and assessments from key stakeholders on the illicit finance landscape to determine effective approaches to define IFFs, identify where most significant increases in illicit finance is taking place; and under which forms as well as how successful have international efforts been in combatting them.

10:30 → 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 → 12:15 Session 6: Governance, Corruption & Transnational Crime Related Illicit Financial Flows

Macroeconomic and broader governance related factors act as drivers of IFFs. These factors include red tape, bureaucratic hurdles, weakness in regulatory oversight, deficient customs enforcement, long judicial delays, bribery and kickbacks. Other governance related factors that prompt IFFs involve the skewed distribution of income. The vicious cycle of rising income of high net-worth individuals, non-inclusive growth exacerbated by tax fatigue among the wealthy (due to a narrow tax base), and subsequent tax evasion exacerbates inequality. These factors act as mark-ups that provide incentives for IFFs. This vicious cycle indicates that inequality may be a cause as much as it effects trade-based IFFs. Human trafficking and smuggling; criminal and terrorist networks continue to profit immensely from illicit trade, including in natural resources. The panel will deliver expert insights and assessments on governance related drivers and motivations for IFFs, including those associated with drug trafficking and crime on one hand and those arising from both traditional governance related IFFs (e.g. corruption, tax evasion) and non-traditional threats.

12:15 → 13:45 Lunch Break

13:45 → 15:15 Session 7: Tax Related Illicit Financial Flows

There is emerging consensus that IFFs should include cross-border movement of illicit funds and assets undertaken in contravention to national laws and international conventions, including tax-related IFFs (tax evasion). There is disagreement, however, on whether tax avoidance, aggressive tax planning and optimization and treaty shopping should be considered within the ambit of IFFs as these flows often fall in a grey area between legality and illegality due to differences in legal standards. Nonetheless, tax evasion and avoidance tend to adversely affect the tax base of developing countries stripping them of the needed public resources to finance their own development imperatives. The panel will deliver expert insights and assessments on best practices to enhance the effectiveness of tax administration for development, including addressing base erosion and profit shifting and transfer pricing practices that continue to undermine taxation systems and the more broader effort towards enhancing domestic resource mobilization capacities.

15:15 → 15:30 Coffee Break

15:30 → 16:00 Session 8: Closing Remarks – Conclusions & Way Forward