This report analyses the volume and pattern of recorded and unrecorded to and from Africa and its various regions and country groups over the period 1980-2009. It also provides the main trends of resource transfers; it does not provide an analysis of the reasons underlying the flows. Further analysis on the dynamics of the will need to be based on in-depth, country-specific work. For the purposes of this study, recorded capital flows are financial and non-financial transactions recorded in the balance of payments, whereas unrecorded primarily involve the flight of capital. The report assumes that unrecorded are illicit in nature and involve the transfer of money earned through corruption, kickbacks, tax evasion, criminal activities, and transactions of certain contraband goods. Likewise, legal funds earned through legal business but transferred abroad in violation of exchange control regulations also become illicit. More specifically, net recorded transfers (NRecT) are based fully on recorded balance of payments items. The narrow version of this measure, NRecT Narrow, is simply equal to the Financial Account Balance, whereas the broad measure, NRecT Broad, is equal to the Financial Account Balance plus the sum of net current and net transfers. Net resource transfers (NRT) are calculated by the difference between NRecT and illicit financial (IFF), which also have two versions, normalized (conservative) and non-normalized (robust). Hence, there are four alternate measures of NRT, corresponding to the version of recorded transfers and outflows of illicit capital. These concepts are important as they enable a comparison of NRecT against unrecorded outflows of illicit capital.Results indicate that Africa was a net creditor to the world, as measured by the net resource transfers, to the tune of up to US $1.4 trillion over the period 1980-2009, adjusted for inflation. While there were brief periods in the early 1980s and the 1990s, when Africa received small net resource transfers from the rest of the world, the continent has been a net provider of resources to the world with estimates of real NRT ranging from US $597 billion to US $1.4 trillion, depending on the definition used for the transfers (NRecT, Narrow or Broad, and IFF, normalized or non-normalized). The most optimistic estimate of NRT (or lowest negative NRT of US $597 billion) involves broadly defined recorded transfers net of conservatively estimated illicit outflows (BroadNRTNorm), while the most pessimistic scenario (negative transfers amounting to US $1.4 trillion) involves narrowly defined recorded transfers net of robust estimates of illicit outflows (NarrowNRTNon-norm).