SOAS DLD Conversation

Missing in action: how the world of offshore finance impacts development and what can be done.

There is a great deal of talk about the ‘financing gap’ for sustainable development – with the United Nations estimating that an additional US $4 trillion is needed annually to reach development goals.

Considerable energy is spent at international conferences arguing for additional resources (often resulting in empty promises). But an astonishing US $11 trillion of potentially vital private capital is estimated to be held offshore, facilitated by an increasingly global and dispersed network of finance, accountancy and tax advisers.

In some regions such as Africa, the estimated level of offshore wealth held by private citizens is significantly higher than the region’s external debt. Not only do high levels of offshore assets limit tax collection everywhere, but they also have profound effects on the prospects and nature of production strategies in low- and middle-income countries.

This DLD conversation, chaired by Co-Director Jonathan Di John, will explore:

• How do offshore finance processes work, how have they evolved, and who facilitates them?
• What impacts does the growth in offshore centres have on production strategies and development prospects?
• Why are elites in some developing countries not comfortable keeping their money at home?
• Why do some countries and regions generate much higher levels of domestic and foreign investment despite the existence of offshore?
• What can be done and by whom, to ensure greater availability of domestic finance to support national development efforts?
  
  

Speakers

• Susan Hawley
• Nicholas Shaxson
• Ricardo Soares de Oliveira

Header image credit: rc.xyz NFT gallery via Unsplash.

The event takes place at SOAS in the room: SALT (Senate House).

About the Speakers

Susan Hawley is an anti-corruption expert who has researched and campaigned on the UK’s role in facilitating global corruption for over 20 years. Her work has included taking the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department to court for weakening anti-bribery procedures, challenging the decision to drop the investigation into the BAE/Al Yamamah scandal, working to secure aid funding for international anti-corruption enforcement in the UK, and being part of efforts to ensure that corporate liability was included in the Bribery Act. She is a founder of Spotlight on Corruption, having previously worked at Corruption Watch UK, The Corner House and Christian Aid on corruption issues.

Nicholas Shaxson is an author, journalist and investigator. He is known for his investigative books including Poisoned Wells (2007), Treasure Islands (2011), and The Finance Curse (2018) which was selected as a Book of the Year by the Financial Times. He has worked as a part-time writer and researcher for the Tax Justice Network and is co-founder of the Balanced Economy Project. His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, the Financial Times, The Economist, The Economist Intelligence Unit, and many others.

Ricardo Soares de Oliveira is Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on African Governance. He has conducted extensive fieldwork on the international political economy of African states with a focus on the extractive industries, the financial sector, conflict and post-conflict reconstruction. He is the author of Magnificent and Beggar Land: Angola Since the Civil War (2015) and Oil and Politics in the Gulf of Guinea (2007) and co-editor of China Returns to Africa (2008). He is currently writing a book titled Africa Offshore: The Global Offshore Economy and the Reshaping of African Politics.