David Cameron failed to tackle UK-sponsored corruption in the form of tax havens at the Anti-Corruption Summit on Thursday, according to a number of charities.

The summit aimed to engage global leaders with tackling the issue of corruption and to develop and agree practical ways to do this.

A number of charities say Cameron missed an opportunity to stop the network of UK-controlled tax havens.

"Today was David Cameron's best chance to stop the UK's network of tax havens profiting from secrecy, but he has failed to take the action he urged on others," said Toby Quantrill, principal economic justice adviser at Christian Aid.

"Soon countries like Nigeria, Kenya and Afghanistan will be more transparent than UK-controlled tax havens. Mr Cameron's failure to clean up the UK's own back yard is a missed opportunity that he must address with the utmost urgency."

Cameron has said all company registers should be public, yet has chosen to exclude the UK's overseas jurisdictions from this measure of transparency that the rest of the UK is pursuing.

"This summit has shone a welcome light on the problem of corruption. But positive moves to make it harder to hide dirty money in the UK risk being overshadowed by the Prime Minister's failure to deliver on his 2013 promise to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding the UK's own tax havens," said Oxfam GB chief executive Mark Goldring.

"If corruption is a cancer then this summit has delivered some pain relief but not the major surgery needed to heal the global economy."

Without rich countries like the United Kingdom preventing their tax havens helping the corrupt, efforts from other nations are limited in efficacy, according to Alvin Mosioma, executive director of Tax Justice Network Africa.

"Some African governments have shown commitment to tackle corruption within their borders and the Nigerian government's recent announcement of a public register of beneficial owners is a good example," he said.

"However, these efforts will not yield the intended results if governments including that of the UK, which should be considered as the hotbed for global corruption, are only paying lip service while providing the getaway cars that allows funds to be siphoned out of Africa.

"Flowery political statements by rich countries' leaders' must translate to concrete action, with them cleaning the corruption swamps in their own backyards."

Cameron's failure to act on UK tax havens does not discredit his work in "putting transparency on the global agenda in 2013", Quantril said.

"The UK has moved a long way in three years and even today has decided to shine a light on the ownership of businesses that knowingly facilitate financial crime, as well as ending their impunity.

"These are small pieces in a much bigger puzzle and Mr Cameron's failure to stand up to UK tax havens, whose total population is the same of a small UK city, leaves us questioning why he is unwilling to do so."

Donald Mogeni, World Vision UK's social accountability advisor said: "Addressing the challenges of tax havens was never going to be a walk in the park, and the post summit media narrative has predictably made #PanamaPapers the chief reference point. We believe that the UK and the leaders in London have made commendable in making commitments on financial disclosures although for us in the aid sector we feel the course of discussions had too heavy a focus on the private sector than the function of charities and the civil society."

"World Vision welcomes the summit's resolution to launch of an Anti-Corruption Innovation Hub, which aims to support social innovators, technology experts and data scientists to collaborate with law enforcement and civil society on innovative approaches to tackling corruption. We believe that in future, technological innovation and social media will increasingly become essential tools in the fight against corruption given their proven potential to reduce opportunities for wrongdoing, empower citizens to highlight illegal practices, and enhance government transparency and accountability. While media and technology will not be the ultimate panacea by themselves, when fortified with well-intentioned complimentary policy reforms, they can make a significant contribution to the fight for good governance," he explained.

Ahead of the conference Cameron called corruption "the cancer at the heart of so many of our problems in the world today". In an article for the Guardian he wrote: "It destroys jobs and holds back growth, costing the world economy billions of pounds every year.

"It traps the poorest in the most desperate poverty as corrupt governments around the world siphon off funds and prevent hard-working people from getting the revenues and benefits of growth that are rightfully theirs."

Ahead of the conference Christian, Muslim and Jewish faith leaders wrote to the Prime Minister and said the UK was "among the main enablers of corruption", branding it a "moral outrage".