Accountability Counsel amplifies the voices of communities around the world to protect their human rights and environment. As advocates for people harmed by internationally financed projects, we employ community driven and policy level strategies to access justice.
Impact
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Communities Supported50
Our impact includes redesigned projects that now reflect community needs, harm stopped and prevented to defend water resources, and agreements resulting in compensation.
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Policy Influenced66
We advocate for the world's 66 accountability offices to be independent, transparent, fair, and effective. We have improved policy and practice at development institutions, U.N. agencies, and within the OECD.
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Complaints Tracked1,395
We created and run the Accountability Console, a comprehensive database of community complaints filed with independent accountability mechanisms about the impacts of internationally financed projects.
News
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3 March, 2021Decolonizing Development Requires A Commitment to Accountability
In a recent op-ed, Foreign Aid is Having A Reckoning, the Editorial Board of The New York Times highlighted discussions happening around the world, and in Africa in particular, about the need to “decolonize” development and center decision-making in the hands of local communities. From our experience working with communities in Africa and across the globe, we know that accountability to communities impacted by development projects is one crucial component of community-led development. -
17 February, 2021Review Team Recommends Important Reforms to the AfDB’s Accountability Framework; More is Needed to Ensure Remedy for Communities
The African Development Bank (AfDB) is one of the largest development finance investors in Africa, committing $7.1 billion in 2018 alone to fund development projects in Africa. But what happens when these projects negatively impact the very communities that are meant to benefit? Unfortunately, negative impacts are not a hypothetical.… -
20 January, 2021Accountability in Action – Three Lessons in Centering Communities
Based on over a decade of working with communities around the world, Accountability Counsel has seen various pitfalls of not adhering to community-led accountability and developed recommendations for how to improve. -
8 January, 2021This is America. Where is Accountability?
At Accountability Counsel, we will continue to shine a light on the power structures that operate with impunity, within the US and elsewhere. We will persist in our demand for accountability of these structures. We will maintain our call for transparency so that power cannot wield misinformation as a weapon. We will amplify the voices of communities who have been silenced and ignored. -
5 January, 2021U.S. Congress Requires USAID to Create an Accountability Mechanism
In late December 2020, when the United States Congress passed its appropriations legislation to fund the government, it issued an accompanying explanatory statement that requires the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to establish an accountability mechanism. This is welcome news for those who want USAID’s projects to be successful…
