Taskforce on International Financial Transactions for Development: Declaration and Terms of Reference

 

An important step forward for the campaign took place last week in Paris. On Thursday 22 October Bernard Kouchner, France's foreign minister convened a Ministerial meeting attended by 11 other countries - the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Chile, Brazil, Norway and Senegal - to launch the Taskforce on International Financial Transactions for Development.

A key focus of its work will be on the Currency Transaction Levy. Please see the short declaration here that the 12 countries formally signed up to as well the Taskforce's Terms of Reference.

There was also an agreement on a Commitee of Experts, who will produce a report for the Taskforce that will form the basis of its conclusion and recommendations. We are pleased to say that the Committee includes a number of people who we have worked closely with in the past. The 9 experts are:

• Lieven Denys:  Professor of European and international tax law at the Law School of Free University of Brussels.
• Professor Stephany Griffith-Jones: currently Executive Director of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University, New York.
• Michael Izza: Chief Executive of the institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales since December 2006.
• Thore Johnsen: Professor of Finance at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration.
• Inge Kaul:  Professor at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany.
• Mathilde Lemoine:  Director of economic studies and market strategies at HSBC France.
• Avinash Persaud:  Chairman of Intelligence Capital Ltd - a company specialised in analysing, managing and creating financial liquidity in investment projects and portfolios.
• Marcio Pochmann: President of the Institute of Applied Economic Research of the Secretary of Strategic matters, of the Presidency of the Brazilian Republic.
• Kazuhiro Ueta: Professor at the Graduate School of Economics and Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies of the Kyoto University.

We will keep you posted with further developments.

David Hillman ~ Coordinator
Stamp Out Poverty

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