UNCTAD's Division for Africa, Least Developed Countries and Special Programmes (ALDC) in partnership with UNCTAD Statistics Service, works jointly with African countries to develop and implement effective policies to tackle illicit financial flows (IFFs) based on robust measurements and evidence of the most harmful IFFs in each country, and enable the focus of countries to increase their fiscal space for sustainable development. UNCTAD strives for consensus-building, cutting edge thinking to support African countries to build their institutional capacity to understand IFFs better, and address more effectively their sustainable development financing needs. 

In this regard, UNCTAD is coordinating a joint measurement workshop and policy expert group meeting with the main objective of looking at policy options that can be implemented to curb IFFs and strengthen domestic resource mobilization for African countries based on nationally compiled IFF statistics. 

The meeting is organized in two parts: the measurement workshop will be held on Monday,  3 February and Tuesday, 4 February (morning) and is open to countries’ representatives of the project, while the afternoon will include other invited participants to discuss general measurement concepts. The policy workshop will be held from Wednesday, 5 February to Friday, 7 February and is open to all participants.

The main aim of the joint measurement workshop and the expert group meeting will be threefold:

1. Discuss applied methodologies to measure tax and commercial IFFs, share results and lessons learnt.
2. Develop a suitable framework for identifying policies in a standard format for African countries but reflecting national priorities.
3. Ascertain the framework through an expert-led review.