Document Search

The Console’s newest feature is a powerful way to do highly targeted research by scanning through nearly 100,000 pages of complaint documents in seconds. Learn more about use cases and example searches.

You may already be aware of the Console’s existing search functionality; search for something in the search bar in the header, and it’ll return any matches across 6 dimensions (complaint names, descriptions, countries, regions, issues, or IAMs). These, combined with the 33 filters available to subset your results, allow you to produce tailored lists of relevant complaints to answer fairly specific questions, such as:

• How many infrastructure projects resulted in eligible complaints about displacement?
• What issues raised by complainants in Africa result in findings of non-compliance?
• How often has a bank’s board denied a request for a compliance investigation?

Though the traditional search & filter features allow for fairly granular research, the results are limited by the variables that we already identified, standardized, and classified. Our new document search feature, however, lets you search for anything at all. DocSearch is our new system for scanning and searching all complaint documentation, using text extracted from almost 100,000 pages of complaint documentation (filings, eligibility assessments, compliance reports, monitoring reports, etc). All the text has been indexed into the Console’s own proprietary search engine, allowing you to identify all instances of a given word or phrase in a matter of seconds. Using the new functionality, you can now ask far more customizable and detailed questions, such as:

• How many complaints about infrastructure projects raise child labor concerns?
• How many complaints in Africa related to projects financed by USAID?
• Which compliance reports involve financial intermediaries?
• Which management action plans reference cash compensation?
• Which communities explicitly reference climate change in their complaints?

Or anything else you might think to search for. DocSearch is still in its early stages of development, so please reach out if you encounter any problems or need assistance formulating particular research questions. We’d love to hear about anything interesting you find.

This article was originally published in the Accountability Console Newsletter, where AC’s Research team shares research and insights from the world’s most comprehensive database of Independent Accountability Mechanism (IAM) complaints, the Accountability Console. Click here if you would like to subscribe to the monthly Console Newsletter.