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DAWEI, 22 May 2020 – Today, an alliance of Karen community groups calls on their government and the international community to abandon a destructive, top-down conservation project that threatens their environment and way of life. They offer an alternative in its place – an indigenous-led conservation plan, called Landscape of…

Investors of all kinds  are providing unprecedented levels of financing in response to COVID-19. Given the sheer scope and impact of the crisis, it is vital that this monetary response reaches those who need it most.  Unfortunately, not all financial institutions and investors responding to the crisis are equipped with the tools needed to receive community feedback and address problems when they arise. This accountability gap risks undermining the effectiveness of the COVID-19 response.

The World Bank Group recently agreed to reforms to improve its accountability, transparency, respect for human rights, and environmental, social, and governance risk management. These wide-ranging commitments are the result of successful negotiations with the U.S. House Financial Services Committee to include a $5.5 billion capital increase for the WBG’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, in COVID-19 stimulus legislation.

While no other method can be nearly as effective as in-person engagement, innovative community engagement tools may hold answers for how to conduct sufficient consultations during a pandemic without putting lives at risk.

The need for financial support during this crisis is both immense and acute, and without a doubt, MDBs should rise to the challenge. The urgency of this moment means that every dollar of financing needs to deliver its intended impact; there is no room for unintended consequences.

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.