This report outlines the different ways that the international financial architecture enables tax abuse, illicit financial flows, and financial secrecy, robbing African states of much needed revenues. In an effort to make up for revenue losses, African states resort to regressive tax measures, external debt and austerity measures, policies that disproportionately affect women and girls in all their diversity.
This is a joint publication, the result of a collaboration between the Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC), the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), and the Tax Justice Network (TJN).
Key Findings:
- The effects of tax abuse, illicit financial flows, and foreign debt touch the lives of every girl or woman throughout their lifecycle, from birth to adulthood, and have compounded effects over their lifetime entrenching systemic inequalities and deepening the feminisation of poverty.
- When multinationals engage in profit shifting, they not only deprive states of revenues, but also deprive their employees of fair wages and compensation and uphold gender inequalities that build economies and societies on the unpaid labour of women and girls.
- Tax justice policies and combating financial secrecy has the potential to recover revenues that would otherwise be lost to tax abuse. Furthermore, gender-responsive budgeting has the potential to ensure that increased revenue flows can deliver on state’s obligations to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and finally achieve gender equality, allowing women and girls to enjoy the full range of their human rights.