Honest Accounts 2017: How the World Profits from Africa’s Wealth

2017 - PDF - The Honest Accounts 2017: How the World Profits from Africa’s Wealth report is published by the Jubilee Debt Campaign, a global movement working to break the chains of debt.  Overall, this study indicates that much more wealth is leaving Africa than actually entering it. 

This report makes recommendations on reducing the impact of practices and systems that extract wealth from African countries. They include promoting economic policies that lead to equitable development, preventing companies with subsidiaries based in tax havens from operating in African countries, and transforming aid into a process that genuinely benefits Africa. 

Research for this report calculates the movement of financial resources into and out of Africa and key costs imposed on Africa by the rest of the world.  The study covers the 47 countries classified as ‘sub-Saharan Africa’ by the World Bank and finds that African countries receive $161.6 billion in resources such as loans, remittances and aid each year, but lose $203 billion through factors including tax avoidance, debt payments and resource extraction, creating an annual net financial deficit of over $40 billion. 

Full downloadable report available - Honest Accounts 2017

You will also find other reports and information on debt across the plant including a interactive map of the world debt on the Jubilee Debt Campaign website.