Financial Transparency Coalition

The G20, as anyone who is familiar with the slow moving tendencies of international organizations will attest to, has taken quite awhile to get behind the idea of cracking down on tax havens and fighting illicit financial flows from both developed and developing countries. The G20 initially recognized these issues as a problem for the internet national community to do something them in early 2009, but it took a slow evolution of statements over the three years for that recognition to be fully fleshed out into concrete actions and orders.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon signed a bill, unanimously passed by the Senate, today aiming to crack down on money laundering that according to experts may account for at least $10 billion every year in Mexico, or as high as $50 billion, according to estimates from Global Financial Integrity. The bill prohibits the giving or accepting of cash payments greater than half a million pesos ($38,750) for real estate purchases, as well as forbidding cash transactions of more than 200,000 pesos ($15,500) for items such as cars, jewelry or lottery tickets.

The resource curse has long been a problem for Africa. The continent’s economies have remained stagnant and hollow for nearly 60 years while a succession of autocrats and their clients have become fabulously wealthy. With huge natural gas discoveries off of the Mozambican coast, vast newfound oil reserves in the Great Lakes region and more than $1 trillion worth of minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there is vast potential for another wasted generation.