Globalising Solidarity : The Case for Financial Levies

In June 2010 a Report of the Committee of Experts to the Taskforce on International Financial Transactions and Development was released. The report focusses on the feasibility of different financial levy options to fund international development and climate change in the context of funding gaps for development, environment, health and other public goods. The report sees a global solidarity dilemma where the growth of global economies has not been matched with the needs to pay for global public goods. The innovative mechanism favoured by the expert group is the Global Solidarity Levy, which is technically a centrally collected multi-currency transaction tax on exchanges of currencies, directly transmitted by the central settlement institutions that operate under the supervision of the Central Banks, to a Global Solidarity Fund that distributes the revenue under the governance of the stakeholders in international development. Because of the existing architecture on which this mechanism can rely, is technically and legally feasible and ready for implementation. The revenue would be additional to official development assistance and neither burden national budgets nor local economies.