AS African leaders descend on Washington this week for the historic U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) has urged the Obama Administration and Heads of State from across the continent to prioritize efforts to curtail illicit financial flows from Africa, which GFI estimates cost the continent roughly US$55.6 billion per year over the past decade.

“Illicit financial outflows are by far the most damaging economic problem facing Africa,” said GFI President Raymond Baker, who sits on the UN High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa. “In 2011 alone, US$76.9 billion flowed illegally out of Africa. That’s nearly US$77 billion that could have been invested in local businesses, in healthcare, in education, or in infrastructure. It’s money that could have been used to help pull people out of poverty and save lives. This Summit provides an historic opportunity for the United States and for leaders across Africa to focus their efforts on curtailing this hemorrhage of illicit capital.”

GFI research finds that US$555.8 billion flowed illicitly out of Africa between 2002 and 2011, fueling crime, corruption, and tax evasion, while simultaneously draining hundreds of billions of dollars from African economies. The problem is so severe that a May 2013 joint report from GFI and the African Development Bank found that, after adjusting all recorded flows of money to and from the continent (e.g. debt, investment, exports, imports, foreign aid, remittances, etc.) for illicit financial outflows, between 1980 and 2009, Africa was a net creditor to the rest of the world on the order of US$597 billion and US$1.4 trillion.