A is for Abuse: Two Harvard Grads Saw Big Profits in African Education. Children Paid the Price.

An aggressive startup set out to disrupt African education, supported by social impact investors including the International Finance Corporation. Now it’s plagued by a sexual abuse investigation.

…

Margaux Day, policy director at Accountability Counsel, a nonprofit that works closely with impacted communities who’ve filed complaints against the IFC and other international financial institutions, said she was grateful Boulet was withdrawn and expressed support for his replacement, but said the trend was worrisome. “It is concerning to us to see additional hires with that type of bank background,” she said. “And if you have too many people who are IFC- or bank-minded, communities will start not trusting the mechanism and it will be seen as just an arm of the bank.”

On top of that, said Day, “The IFC’s track record for remedying findings of noncompliance is bleak.” Her organization looked closely at 41 cases where the CAO had found the IFC culpable, and in only nine of them did they commit to any type of remedy. In those cases, rather than offering meaningful compensation to victims, they often simply made promises of improvement.

Read the full article from The Intercept here.