After air fares and share sales, U.N. seeks aid money from oil

By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations is talking to oil-producing African countries about levying 10 cents on every barrel produced to provide funds to help the poorest nations improve public health, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday. The proposed funding mechanism would follow two other schemes to raise money for development in unconventional ways - a levy on airline tickets in more than a dozen countries and a tax planned by 11 European nations on share transactions. Philippe Douste-Blazy, U.N. under-secretary general for innovative finance for development, said he hoped the new arrangement would be cemented by early 2015. "In 2014 I will be working with African leaders for a tax on natural resource extraction, a very important development which we will soon be able to announce," Douste-Blazy, a former French minister of health and foreign affairs, told a news conference. Read More http://ift.tt/1ob4vTM