International Consultant – Updating Illicit Financial Flows Estimates in Africa: Measurement, Methodological Advances, and Technical Guidance and Operationalizing the Database through the Illicit Fina

## International Consultant – Updating Illicit Financial Flows Estimates in Africa: Measurement, Methodological Advances, and Technical Guidance and Operationalizing the Database through the Illicit Fina - Organization:UNECA - Economic Commission for Africa - Office:UNECA Addis Ababa Result of Service:Under the supervision of ECA, the consultant will be responsible The consultant will be responsible for delivering a rigorous and policy-oriented analytical output that integrates empirical estimation with methodological development and an IFF app. The consultant will design and implement the analytical framework for estimating illicit financial flows, ensuring that it is grounded in both established approaches and recent methodological advances. This will include the collection, cleaning, and harmonization of relevant datasets, as well as the application of appropriate statistical and analytical techniques to generate updated estimates. In parallel, the consultant will undertake a systematic assessment of existing methodologies, identifying their respective strengths and limitations and evaluating their applicability in the African context. This will require careful documentation of assumptions, data constraints, and potential sources of bias, as well as the development of approaches to mitigate these challenges. A central responsibility of the assignment will be the preparation of a comprehensive methodological guide or technical note. This will translate the analytical work into a structured and accessible framework that can be used by policymakers and technical practitioners to estimate illicit financial flows in a consistent and replicable manner. The development of the IFF app will constitute a core component of the assignment. The consultant will design, develop and operationalize an interactive platform that transforms ECA’s trade misinvoicing database into an accessible analytical and knowledge-sharing tool. The platform will enable users to explore illicit financial flow estimates through aggregate and country-level dashboards, partner and sector analyses, interactive visualizations, and customizable filters across countries, commodities, sectors, trading partners, time periods, and estimation methods. The consultant will ensure that the platform supports data exploration, evidence-based analysis, and dissemination of results for a wide range of stakeholders, including policymakers, customs administrations, researchers, journalists, and development practitioners. The consultant will also prepare the necessary technical documentation and facilitate knowledge transfer to support the platform’s sustainability and future use by ECA. Throughout the assignment, the consultant will engage closely with ECA technical teams, incorporating feedback and ensuring that the outputs are aligned with institutional priorities. The consultant will also be expected to synthesize the analytical findings into a coherent narrative that highlights key trends, methodological considerations, and policy implications, and to present these findings in a format suitable for both technical and policy audiences. 5. Deliverables and Outputs The consultant will deliver the following outputs, grouped under the two components of the assignment.Inception report covering both components: the proposed analytical framework, data sources, and methodological approach for the updated estimates, together with the platform specifications and technical architecture for the IFF application.Analytical study: (a) Harmonized datasets and intermediate estimation outputs, together with updated annual IFF estimates covering 2000-2024 at the continental, subregional, and country levels, and where feasible at the sectoral level, accompanied by summary tables of headline results. (b) Draft Analytical Report presenting the updated estimates, the methodologies applied, and key findings, together with a Draft Methodological Guide setting out the estimation framework in a structured and replicable manner. (c) Final Analytical Report and Final Methodological Guide, incorporating ECA feedback.IFF application: (a) Operational data infrastructure converting the updated database into the application's production data layer, with query and aggregation functionality. (b) Core application frontend live at the agreed URL, including aggregate views, automated country profiles, sectoral and trading-partner analyses, drill-down and filtering capabilities, interactive visualizations, and data export functionality. (c) Finalized application incorporating ECA feedback and user testing, delivered with source code, technical documentation, a deployment handover package, and a virtual training session for ECA staff.Stakeholder presentation of the findings and demonstration of the application's functionality and policy applications. - Inception report covering both components: the proposed analytical framework, data sources, and methodological approach for the updated estimates, together with the platform specifications and technical architecture for the IFF application. - Analytical study: (a) Harmonized datasets and intermediate estimation outputs, together with updated annual IFF estimates covering 2000-2024 at the continental, subregional, and country levels, and where feasible at the sectoral level, accompanied by summary tables of headline results. (b) Draft Analytical Report presenting the updated estimates, the methodologies applied, and key findings, together with a Draft Methodological Guide setting out the estimation framework in a structured and replicable manner. (c) Final Analytical Report and Final Methodological Guide, incorporating ECA feedback. - IFF application: (a) Operational data infrastructure converting the updated database into the application's production data layer, with query and aggregation functionality. (b) Core application frontend live at the agreed URL, including aggregate views, automated country profiles, sectoral and trading-partner analyses, drill-down and filtering capabilities, interactive visualizations, and data export functionality. (c) Finalized application incorporating ECA feedback and user testing, delivered with source code, technical documentation, a deployment handover package, and a virtual training session for ECA staff. - Stakeholder presentation of the findings and demonstration of the application's functionality and policy applications. Work Location:Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Expected duration:12 Month Duties and Responsibilities:1. Background Illicit financial flows (IFFs) continue to pose a significant challenge to economic development in Africa, undermining domestic resource mobilization, weakening fiscal sustainability, and constraining the ability of governments to finance development priorities. Financial outflows associated with trade misinvoicing, tax evasion, profit shifting, and other cross-border leakages reduce the effectiveness of public policy and limit the resources available for infrastructure, social services, and structural transformation. Despite sustained attention to the issue, the measurement of IFFs remains complex and contested. Existing estimates vary widely due to differences in conceptual definitions, data sources, and methodological approaches. Traditional estimation techniques, including mirror trade analysis and residual-based methods, have provided important insights but are subject to limitations related to data inconsistencies, aggregation bias, and limited coverage of emerging channels of financial leakage. The evolving global economic environment has further complicated measurement. The increasing integration of global value chains, the growing mobility of capital, and the digitalization of economic activity have introduced new pathways through which illicit flows can occur. These developments have widened the gap between existing estimation approaches and the underlying economic realities they seek to capture. At the same ti