Capital flows impairing development: Jayant Sinha

New Delhi: Capital flows that are leaving the developing world are impairing development and stopping countries from reaching their development goals, setting up an inequitable situation, Jayant Sinha, minister of state for finance said on Wednesday.

Sinha, who headed the Indian delegation to the recent Addis Ababa conference on financing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), said India’s focus at the Ethiopia conference was to ensure the strengthening of a global tax policy that would help mop up some of this capital flow.

SDGs will replace the millennium development goals (MDGs) outlined in 2000. They are to be adopted by the international community at the UN General Assembly session in New York later this month.

MDGs were time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty—including income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion—while promoting gender equality, education and environmental sustainability.