On 7 April, the World Bank Group published a report on the first year of implementation of its policy on the use of Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs) – commonly known as tax havens – in its private sector operations. The report, which comes after repeated calls from civil society organisations for a stronger policy, fails to include the necessary information to make a proper assessment of the Bank’s implementation efforts. Once again, it exposes the inadequacies of the current policy in terms of tackling tax evasion and avoidance. The World Bank Group’s current policy, which was adopted in November 2011, requires its private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to report to its Board of Directors on the implementation of its policy towards OFCs. This ...