The capacity-building programme of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (Global Forum) reached its 10-year mark in 2021. This report presents how the programme emerged, evolved and grew over the years, takes stock of the achievements and outlines the strategy for the future. The Global Forum continues to work toward improving the effectiveness of the support provided to members, taking into account their diversity and specific needs, resources available and the impact of actions on the ground. This anniversary provides an opportunity to take stock of the tremendous progress made:1 l With a majority of its members being developing countries, capacity-building activities have reached a global scale with 75 jurisdictions receiving assistance in 2021 alone. Progress has been made in 36 ongoing Induction Programmes and tailored assistance has been provided to 34 member jurisdictions. Five jurisdictions received pre-membership assistance. l Since 2011, 22 000 officials from all over the world attended 316 seminars, workshops and trainings organised by the Global Forum. Five e-learning courses have been made available in 2019-21 and already taken by nearly 5 200 officials. To further enhance its training package, in 2021, the Global Forum launched the Train the Trainer programme under the umbrella of the Africa Initiative. The pilot programme covered 17 African countries and aimed at boosting local training capacity. l In addition to trainings, member jurisdictions have also been provided with seven practical toolkits in 2019-21, helping them navigate through core aspects of the effective implementation of the standards on transparency and exchange of information (EOI). l Members positively rated the technical assistance (4.6/5) and training programmes (4.4/5). l This work has evident impact. Since 2011, 66 developing jurisdictions have joined the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (MAAC), which is already in force for 56 of them. Most of the developing countries have satisfactorily implemented the standard on exchange of information on request. Out of the 108 jurisdictions committed to implement the standard of automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) by 2021, 36 are developing jurisdictions. The implementation of AEOI by developing countries is taking off with 12 additional developing countries committed to exchange in 2022-24 and others considering a suitable date for starting their first automatic exchanges with the support of the Secretariat. l Since 2009, developing countries have progressively taken ownership of EOI tools, benefiting from enhanced training. For example, while developing countries which replied to the Global Forum survey sent an average of 44 requests per year in the period 2009-11, they almost doubled this number in the period 2012-20 (82 requests on average). In total, developing countries sent almost 30 000 requests for information between 2009 and 2020. l EUR 30 billion of additional revenue were identified by developing countries through offshore tax investigations and voluntary disclosure programmes. In addition, the 2022 Global Forum Capacity Building report provides an update on the capacitybuilding programme and outreach activities carried out since the 2021 report.2 This report sets out the technical assistance and trainings activities provided in 2021 in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Into the second year of the pandemic, the Global Forum continued to implement its Action Plan to best address the needs for assistance and support of its members, in particular developing countries, in a context of increased demand. Assistance was provided remotely through videoconferencing, and new programmes and trainings were launched, building up on synergies fostered in 2020. The three high-level objectives of the Global Forum capacity-building programme (widespread members engagement, effective implementation and practical use of the standards) aim at ensuring that more and more developing countries appropriately implement the standards and benefit from transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes to tackle offshore tax evasion and increase their revenues. Members’ engagement continued with new commitments to the standards, despite the impossibility to meet with decision-makers on the ground. New jurisdictions signed and ratified the MAAC, committed to a specific date to exchanging information automatically and joined regional initiatives (Africa Initiative and Punta del Este Declaration). The launch of the Asia Initiative in 2022 seeks to replicate the benefits and proven efficiency generated by other regional capacity-building programmes, while also benefitting from the momentum created by Indonesia’s 2022 and India’s 2023 G20 Presidencies. Effective implementation and practical use of the standards were reinforced in 2021 with specific and tailored-made trainings. The desk-based assistance focused on improving legal frameworks for tax transparency as well as on operational and organisational aspects of exchange of information through the provision of country-level advice.
