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Illicit Financial Flows, Trade Mispricing, and their impact on African economies

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Regional Integration and Policy Challenges in Africa

Abstract

Capital flight from developing countries has increased tremendously in the last decade. A large portion of these flows occurs via illicit means. Kar and Cartwright (2010) estimate such illicit financial flows from Africa between 1970 and 2008 to be about US$854 billion. This cumulative amount is considerable and equivalent to nearly all of the Official Development Aid (ODA) received by Africa during that 39-year period (Kar and Cartwright, 2010). From a different perspective, only one-third of the Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) would have fully covered the continent’s external debt of US$279 billion in 2008 (UNECA, 2009). Such a 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.

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© 2015 Simon Mevel, Siope Vakataki ‘Ofa and Stephen Karingi

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Mevel, S., ‘Ofa, S.V., Karingi, S. (2015). Illicit Financial Flows, Trade Mispricing, and their impact on African economies. In: Elhiraika, A.B., Mukungu, A.C.K., Nyoike, W. (eds) Regional Integration and Policy Challenges in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137462084_11

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