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After nearly two years of deliberating internally, the World Bank Group (WBG) Board of Directors has approved significant changes to its accountability framework for public-sector lending. To date, limited information about the details of these changes has been publicly shared, leaving considerable ambiguity about how they will be operationalized. Drawing…

On March 5, 2020, the World Bank Group Board of Directors approved significant changes to the accountability framework for public-sector lending, including the creation of an entirely new accountability office called the World Bank Accountability Mechanism.

In the wake of a scandal revealing the World Bank may have suppressed knowledge of money for the poor being siphoned off by elites, all eyes are on the Bank to see whether its commitments to the poor hold water. Now, the Bank has a chance to demonstrate its commitment to vulnerable communities––and not the wealthy few––by righting its wrongs in a massive water scheme the Bank is financing in rural India.

Where international investment from powerful actors uses natural resources like water or land that sustain life for local people, conflict is a predictable result. We have seen those conflicts near a breaking point, but we have also seen firsthand how communities, companies, governments and institutions can build interpersonal relationships, trust, and overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers to come to agreement on a peaceful path forward.

Nearly one year after their landmark victory that removed the World Bank Group’s absolute immunity in U.S. courts, fishing and farming communities in Gujarat, India faced a setback in their struggle to access justice for harm caused by an International Finance Corporation (IFC) funded coal-fired power plant. On February 14,…

The accountability framework for the World Bank Group’s private sector arms is under review and, given the challenges that the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral Guarantee Agency (MIGA) have faced in this area, the stakes are high. The accountability framework, which includes an accountability office known as the Compliance…

We are pleased to welcome Margaux Day as Accountability Counsel’s Policy Director. As the head of our Washington, D.C. Policy team, Margaux oversees our advocacy to ensure that local communities can protect their rights and environment when impacted by international financial flows.

As the new U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) begins operations this month, its policies and practices will shape the legacy and effectiveness of this new era of U.S. development.

Accountability Counsel is proud to announce the launch of our new case study – ‘When HOPE is POWER: Haitian Farmers Defend Land Rights in Historic Dialogue Process.’ ‘When HOPE is POWER’ tells the story of the Kolektif Peyizan Viktim Tè Chabè, a collective of Haitian farmers and their families representing nearly 4,000 people, who were displaced by the internationally-financed Caracol Industrial Park (CIP).

This Human Rights Day, we are honoring the communities and advocates at the frontlines of struggles to protect their human rights and environment. Human rights defenders like Seliana Marcelus (pictured above) and Ilna St. Jean (pictured below) in Haiti whose organizing has resulted in historic progress toward restoring the farming…

Discussions taking place at this week’s Power Summit must focus on addressing the concerns of project-affected communities and Indigenous Peoples on whose lands hydropower and transmission line projects will be built, said Accountability Counsel and Lawyers’ Association for Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous Peoples (LAHURNIP) today. The Power Summit 2019, organized by the Independent Power Producers Association of Nepal, is being held from November 21 – 22 in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Today we are thrilled to share our new tool, the Accountability Console, with the world. After years in the making and as a result of community-driven demand, this tool provides communities, investors, policy-makers, and researchers with the world’s most comprehensive data on all Independent Accountability Mechanism (IAM) complaints. These complaints…

As Chinese commercial banks and state institutions finance projects overseas, communities negatively affected by these projects lack avenues to raise grievances. But this may soon change. In a positive move, a new policy framework released today may shape standards Chinese investments follow and accountability options for local communities.

We’re thrilled to announce that our short film “”When the Dust Came In: Mongolian Herders Negotiate Their Future with a Massive Mine” will be featured at the Annual San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival. Our film, directed by the talented filmmaker Abhi Singh, will be shown first in the festival’s signature shorts program, Coast to Coast, beginning at 6:45pm on November 10, 2019. If you’re in the Bay Area, we hope you will join us!

When development institutions like the World Bank Group (WBG) talk about their “risk-management services,” as President David Malpass did in his speech at the WBG Annual Meetings that just concluded, the risk being managed is that of losses to governments and corporations that benefit from public development finance. Accountability Counsel and many of our colleagues participating in the Civil Society Policy Forum, held during the Annual Meetings, highlighted the WBG’s duty to urgently reframe thinking about risk. Rather than financial loss, the WBG should think about risk in terms of the people, and the environments they depend on, that the bank exists to serve.

Accountability Counsel and 74 global partners submitted a joint statement to the World Bank Group’s Board of Directors, expressing concerns about the lack of transparency and external stakeholder engagement in the accountability framework review of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). This process includes a review of IFC/MIGA’s independent accountability mechanism (IAM), the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO).

This week, the World Bank Group announced the review of the IFC and MIGA’s environmental and social (E&S) accountability. The announcement is here. The external review will include evaluation of “the role and effectiveness of the Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), the independent accountability mechanism for IFC and…

Nomadic herders in Mongolia’s South Gobi Desert are fighting to protect their way of life and livelihoods while living alongside the massive Oyu Tolgoi mine. In 2017, they reached historic agreements with the mining company and local government to address the impacts of the mine. Our new short film shares the collective work that led to these agreements and the path forward to ensure that the promises translate to a sustainable future for local herders.

Amidst a decade of profoundly gratifying moments I’ve experienced since founding Accountability Counsel, a pinnacle was this month’s gathering in Washington, D.C. with our board, staff team, and global partners from seven of the 50 countries in which we’ve worked. We came together to celebrate a decade of Accountability Counsel, to reflect, and to draw inspiration from one another as we launch our second decade.

Community members and activists have bravely and tirelessly resisted plans to construct a 1,050-megawatt coal-fired power plant on the Lamu coastline, in Kenya, despite intimidation, repression and smear campaigns. They have left no stone unturned in their efforts to hold the actors responsible for this disastrous project accountable. Yet a group of investors, led by the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), has narrowly avoided responsibility for its contributions to date. Steps must be taken to close this accountability gap.