United Nations Headquarters
New York
June 3, 2010

Global Financial Integrity Director Raymond Baker spoke Thursday, June 3rd at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on the topic of “Innovative Development Financing Initiatives Under Development” as part of an informal event on innovative sources of development finance.

Yesterday’s meeting will inform a Chairman’s summary of recommendations to the preparatory process of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals taking place in New York, September 20-22nd 2010.

Council on Foreign Relations

Washington, DC

April 16, 2010

GFI Director Raymond Baker discusses corruption and illicit financial flows from Africa with Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of the Center for Global Development and Rafael Marques de Morais.  Princeton N. Lyman of the Council on Foreign Relations presides over this roundtable discussion. 

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 Brookings Institution

 Washington, DC

 September 8, 2009

I would like to thank the Brookings Institute for inviting me to speak today.  The issues I will discuss with all of you are the blossoming relationship between what might seem unlikely bedfellows…. the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, whether we have a national security crisis looming on the horizon, and whether our national security and law enforcement communities are sufficiently focused on this threat.

Iran and Venezuela are beyond the courting phase.  We know they are creating a cozy financial, political, and military partnership, and that both countries have strong ties to Hezbollah and Hamas.  Now is the time for policies and actions in order to ensure that the partnership produces no poisonous fruit.

Raymond Baker

Director, Global Financial Integrity

I want to talk about two things this morning. One, the international structure that supports the flow of illicit money across borders, and two the harmful impact these illicit flows have on economic growth and poverty alleviation in poorer countries.

To begin, let’s get a simple picture of global poverty and inequality fixed in our minds.

What we have here are two bar charts depicting the two usual ways of measuring global income. One is based on purchasing power parity and the other on currency exchange rates. In each bar chart each color represents 20 percent of the world’s population. The size of the color indicates the portion of global income flowing to that 20 percent grouping. Look at how much of global income flows to the top 20 percent, or quintile, and how little of global income is available to the bottom 80 percent. Seventy to 90 percent of global income belongs to the top 20 percent, leaving only ten to 30 percent of global income for the bottom 80 percent of the world.