Mr. Sorley McCaughey:

Deputy Brendan Smith asked about the establishment of a new permanent institution, and he makes a valid point. The financing for development process already has a secretariat in place, but it is woefully under-resourced and it does not have a mandate such as we would like it to have. It is not a question of establishing a new institution but of providing it with the resources to do its job properly, which would include generating monitoring reports, holding individual governments to account in respect of their commitments under the FFD process and generating annual reports. At the moment very little happens between one FFD process and the next, and that is in part down to a lack of accountability on the part of the commitments that individual governments are forced to make. It is also because there is no adequately resourced secretariat to provide the accountability and monitoring that are required to make it effective.

I do not think the Deputy had in mind the establishment of UN bodies when he asked about tax. Nevertheless, although individual countries attach great importance to the sovereignty of their tax systems, it is clear that it is not working. Individual countries are losing billions every year, in part because of the degree of competition in which they are engaged with other countries. We have got to the stage at which tax sovereignty is so important that people do not consider the benefits that might accrue from greater co-operation in taxation matters. Christian Aid and others have been advocating greater co-operation for a long time in parts of Africa where there are already economic blocs working in co-operation. Greater co-operation on taxation issues would have very real benefits in maintaining and widening the tax base and enabling these countries to tax appropriately. The system at the moment is not working and greater co-operation on tax issues is desirable.

I could not agree more on the question of reviewing UN institutions. It is something Christian Aid and the broader sector have spoken about, but a review of the institutions needs to include a review of the mandate and governance structures of organisations such as the World Bank, the IMF and the OECD, all of whom have inherited or taken on hugely influential roles, particularly in the areas of finance and taxation. We would support any calls to review institutions, but not just those of the UN. A review would have to include the Bretton Woods institutions too.