This publication identifies the main areas of weakness and potential areas for action to combat money-laundering, tax evasion, foreign bribery, and to identify, freeze and return stolen assets.

This publication identifies the main areas of weakness and potential areas for action to combat money-laundering, tax evasion, foreign bribery, and to identify, freeze and return stolen assets. It also looks at the role of development agencies and finds that the potential returns to developing countries from using ODA on issues like combating tax evasion or asset recovery are significant. Finally, it identifies some opportunities for a scaled-up role for development agencies.

Why are carefully designed, sensible policies too often not adopted or implemented? When they are, why do they often fail to generate development outcomes such as security, growth, and equity? And why do some bad policies endure? World Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law addresses these fundamental questions, which are at the heart of development. Policy making and policy implementation do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, they take place in complex political and social settings, in which individuals and groups with unequal power interact within changing rules as they pursue conflicting interests. The process of these interactions is what this Report calls governance, and the space in which these interactions take place, the policy arena. The capacity of actors to commit and their willingness to cooperate and coordinate to achieve socially desirable goals are what matter for effectiveness. However, who bargains, who is excluded, and what barriers block entry to the policy arena determine the selection and implementation of policies and, consequently, their impact on development outcomes. Exclusion, capture, and clientelism are manifestations of power asymmetries that lead to failures to achieve security, growth, and equity. The distribution of power in society is partly determined by history. Yet, there is room for positive change. This Report reveals that governance can mitigate, even overcome, power asymmetries to bring about more effective policy interventions that achieve sustainable improvements in security, growth, and equity. This happens by shifting the incentives of those with power, reshaping their preferences in favor of good outcomes, and taking into account the interests of previously excluded participants. These changes can come about through bargains among elites and greater citizen engagement, as well as by international actors supporting rules that strengthen coalitions for reform.

This report is a first step towards building a qualitative understanding of the way illicit or criminal activities interact with the economy, security and development of West African States.

This year’s edition of the Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) publication focuses on illicit financial flows and their detrimental effects on development and growth.

A growing concern among those interested in economic development is the realization that hundreds of billions of dollars are illicitly flowing out of developing countries to tax havens and other financial centers in the developed world. This volume assesses the dynamics of these flows, much of which is from corruption and tax evasion.