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On November 6, 2017, Accountability Counsel, together with Human Rights Watch, PAJHRA, PAD, and Nazdeek, delivered a Care2 petition with more than 67,000 signatures to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private sector arm. The petition calls on the IFC to fulfill its commitment to protect workers through its investment…

The bank’s strategy rightly notes that civic engagement outcomes are “highly context-specific and sensitive to governments’ and citizens’ capacity and willingness to engage, as well as to social, political, economic, environmental, cultural, geographic, and other factors, such as gender dynamics.” When it comes to civic tech, there are often multiple barriers to meaningful engagement.

The United States National Contact Point (U.S. NCP) is meant to act as a complaint mechanism where people harmed by American companies’ activities and operations can bring grievances. Each member country adhering to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (OECD Guidelines) is required to have an NCP office to further the effectiveness of the OECD Guidelines. As part of fulfilling this duty, the U.S. NCP handles complaints about alleged breaches of the OECD Guidelines and provides a platform for mediation of disputes.

It is essential that any reorganization or reform of the executive branch strengthens these oversight functions and affirms the longstanding U.S. commitment to the principles of transparency, accountability, and development effectiveness.

Development finance institutions (DFIs)—from multilateral development banks to national agencies—are soul searching. These institutions understand that the Sustainable Development Goals cannot be achieved with public funds alone. Increasingly, private finance is driving infrastructure development, financial inclusion of the poor, public health innovation, and more. In response, DFIs’ leaders speak of mobilizing capital and leveraging their institutions’ expertise to remain relevant.

Today, civil society groups supporting tea workers in the Indian state of Assam held a press conference in Kolkata, hours before the board of World Bank-financed tea plantation, Amalgamated Plantations Private Limited (APPL), was set to meet for its annual general meeting.

Today in the United States defenders of human rights have to state the obvious. It is not acceptable to remain silent when the president of the United States validates white supremacists. So we speak up against hatred, bigotry, racism, and anti-Semitism. We act against hatred in our daily work as…

To best advocate for people harmed by internationally financed projects, we engage with stakeholders at all stages of the development process. This ranges from on-the-ground strategy sessions with communities that are impacted by projects, to advocacy meetings with development finance institutions, and everywhere in between. We travel the globe to ensure that these institutions respect the human and environmental rights of the communities affected by their investments and that their independent accountability mechanisms facilitate meaningful solutions for these communities.

Ms. Shakti Sahanubhuti – name changed to protect identity – is a proud Indigenous landholder from Sindhuli district in central Nepal. She and her community – including Indigenous peoples, Dalits, women and other marginalized groups – are concerned about the health, safety, and economic impacts of the World Bank funded Khimti Dhalkebar Transmission Line (KDTL), implemented by the Government-run Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). After significant delays, the KDTL project became operational earlier this year, but community concerns about the project remain unaddressed.

The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), Accountability Counsel, and OECD Watch are pleased to announce the launch of a new project: Advancing and Strengthening the OECD NCP Peer Review Process.

In a positive, impressive decision, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has agreed to sit down with farmers harmed by one of their projects – the Caracol Industrial Park in Northeast Haiti – to discuss their concerns and potential solutions as part of a facilitated dialogue.

San Francisco – Accountability Counsel, a legal organization that advocates for people harmed by internationally financed projects, today announced that Gary Cookhorn, managing director of Fortress Investment Group, will join the organization’s board of directors. Cookhorn is a veteran of the global finance and investment sector having served in leadership positions at international development institutions. Cookhorn’s roles included the divisional chief financial officer with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the head of the Loan Services Group at the World Bank.

Accompanied by Oyu Tolgoi Watch and Accountability Counsel, herders in the South Gobi used the IFC’s complaint office to negotiate agreement.

As Accountability Counsel works to be a unifying force among advocates for accountability, we are investing in our programs to support others around the world who advocate for communities on the margin. Our research program is expanding to include in-depth case research, data aggregation and the management of a public accountability mechanism case database. This expansion allows advocates better access to case information and documentation on bank and mechanism decisions. Leading this expansion is Accountability Counsel’s new Research Director Samer Araabi.

Sign our petition to tell airport operators and investors to act. *Para una versión española, vea a continuación* On 5 June 2017, the independent accountability office of the Inter-American Development Bank confirmed that the bank did not do enough to protect neighboring communities from serious harm when it funded the…

As advocates who accompany communities around the world as they seek to defend their human and environmental rights, Accountability Counsel condemns in the strongest possible terms the Trump administration’s stated attempt to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord. The Trump administration’s galling failure to defend this historic…

When nomadic camel herders in Mongolia’s South Gobi Desert filed a complaint about the impacts of two large mines on their way of life, they thought they knew what to expect from the complaint office that received their case. Known as the Project Complaint Mechanism (PCM), it accepts complaints from communities harmed by projects financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and investigates whether those projects have met the bank’s social and environmental standards. The herders expected a thorough investigation: one that would document the harm they had experienced and draw conclusions about compliance with international standards based on that evidence. Four years later, their experience has fallen far short of these expectations.

Affected communities. Civil society organizations. World Bank staff and Executive Directors. Governments. Private sector companies. The World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings, and the accompanying Civil Society Policy Forum (CSPF), are an avenue where all of these actors can get together to discuss pressing issues in international development financing. Accountability Counsel actively participated in this year’s Spring Meetings and CSPF, held in April, and pushed our message that accountability must be a priority for everyone involved in order for development to be effective.

At the heart of all of Accountability Counsel’s cases are community members who were denied their basic right to participate in decisions that critically impact their lives. We have cases all over the world, representing diverse communities with vastly different life experiences, yet all of Accountability Counsel’s cases present this…

All too often, community voices are excluded from decisions that affect their lives and their environment. And so they were in Haiti, when the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) provided funding to build the Caracol Industrial Park – a large garment factory complex, including a heavy oil power plant – a short distance inland from Caracol Bay, a US $3.2 trillion mangrove and coral reef ecosystem that is now part of Haiti’s Three Bays National Park.