In the News

Are development finance institutions held accountable when their projects cause harm to communities and ecosystems? While “accountability” has become an oft-used and broadly-defined buzzword in development, much work remains to be done to ensure that institutions are indeed held to account in their everyday operations. According to a recent report by eleven international NGOs, including the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), Accountability Counsel, Center for International Environmental Law, and Inclusive Development International, the evidence suggests that development finance institutions are failing to provide remedy to those harmed by their projects.

When violations of bank policy are not formally investigated by the Inspection Panel, people who have been harmed by bank projects have nothing to point to for “external validation” of wrongdoing, Accountability Counsel Executive Director Natalie Bridgeman Fields told Devex. Further, formal investigations serve a critical role in promoting learning at the World Bank and within the board by establishing a “systemic level of accountability,” Fields said. So why would the Inspection Panel recommend against a formal investigation?

If you ask the average Haitian, they probably do not know of their government’s plan to develop the country’s gold deposits through a formal mining sector. For over two years the government has been advancing a strategy to bring foreign mining companies into Haiti, yet hardly any information has been made public about a decision that will likely have sweeping implications for people throughout the country.

There’s an ill wind blowing in Vinnytsa Oblast, and if one of Ukraine’s biggest agriculture companies keeps growing, things could get worse for the people living nearby, environmental, corporate and bank watchdog organizations from the European Union and Ukraine say. MyronivskyHliboproduct (MHP), which runs the biggest poultry farm in Europe near the village of Ladyzhyn southeast of Vinnytsa, was the subject of two reports released this September after a fact-finding mission of six environmental watchdogs visited the area in May.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in development finance from the World Bank’s investment arm have helped to fund the controversial expansion of a billionaire’s agribusiness empire in Ukraine, amid growing concern that land and farming in the country are increasingly falling into the hands of a few wealthy individuals. Controlled by…

The World Bank failed to make sure that families displaced by a high-voltage power transmission line in Nepal were properly counted and compensated, an internal panel at the bank found this week. The revelation marks the latest instance in which the development giant was faulted by its own watchdog for not following its own rules on forced, or “involuntary,” resettlement.

…“These recent failures at the Bank present a legitimacy crisis. To restore its credibility, the Bank needs to rethink its approach to accountability and the reforms needed to achieve it,” wrote Natalie Bridgeman Fields, founder and executive director of Accountability Counsel, and Kindra Mohr, Accountability Counsel’s policy director, in the Council on Foreign Relations blog in May…

Change makers around the world increasingly use new technologies and communication tools to advocate, engage communities, and drive action—especially among young people. Blogs, social media campaigns, community video screenings, and flash mob demonstrations have exploded in popularity over the past several years, often serving to elevate grassroots voices and spur marginalized groups to action. By understanding and supporting such efforts, funders can capitalize on advocacy’s potential to achieve significant returns on investment.

The World Bank faces a disconnect between its mission to serve the poor and the effects of its projects, some of which displaced 3.4 million people in the world’s most fragile regions over the past nine years. Last month, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim admitted to known, longstanding problems…

This week, Peruvian organization Derecho Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR) published a bulletin featuring Accountability Counsel’s historic case in Oaxaca, Mexico, where communities successfully used a complaint mechanism to secure their right to have a say in development decisions.

“Putting a high-risk strategy in place in these environments is like throwing matches into a tinderbox,” said Natalie Fields, the executive director of the Accountability Counsel, a legal group that represents native people in disputes with the World Bank and IFC. “They are guaranteed to lead to abuses or even fail.”

The question of what kind of development Nepal wants has gained increasing urgency as more and more people risk losing their homes, land, and livelihoods to development projects. Hydropower projects such as Upper Marsyangdi-A in Lamjung, Kabeli-A in Panchthar, and Khimti-Dhalkebar in Sindhuli; the Sunsari-Morang irrigation project; and the proposed Sapta Koshi High Dam are just a few examples.

On a scorching day back in April 2013, among the ruins of a failed U.S.-backed development project, Liberian women gathered to tell their stories of sexual abuse and exploitation at the hands of Buchanan Renewables bosses. The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) approved $217 million in “development” financing for Buchanan Renewables to carry out an energy project in Liberia, which was a spectacular failure and led to the abuses that these women suffered. By failing to take appropriate precautions to protect the vulnerable communities in Liberia and heed warnings of abuse and major project defects, OPIC failed its development mandate and perpetuated livelihood destruction, severe worker injuries, harm to indigenous peoples, water contamination, forest degradation, and human rights abuses.

The World Bank, created to fight poverty, has admitted that it’s failed to follow its own rules for protecting the poor people swept aside by dams, roads and other big projects it bankrolls. This conclusion, announced by the bank on Wednesday, amounts to a reversal of its previous efforts to…

SANTA URSULA, Mexico (AP) — People in the hamlet of Santa Ursula began to worry when the logging started. In a few short weeks, more than a mile of densely forested riverbank was stripped from the Arroyo Sal to make way for heavy dredging equipment. Work was just beginning in late 2010 on an ambitious, three-year, $30 million project to build a 15-megawatt hydroelectric plant directly adjacent to the Cerro de Oro dam, with support from a U.S. government agency in Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Key U.S. senators said they want more oversight of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the federal government’s development finance agency that was the subject of an Associated Press investigation earlier this week into a failed $217 million energy project in western Africa marked by insider connections and questionable due diligence. The AP’s review put renewed attention on oversight of the federal agency. Last year, legislation that would have created the position of an inspector general inside OPIC, part of larger legislation known as the Energize Africa Act, failed to pass Congress. Bill co-author Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, continues to support the measure. A committee aide said the effort carries broad support.

“There was just an utter failure of the due diligence process that OPIC is supposed to follow,” said Natalie Bridgeman Fields, executive director of the Accountability Counsel, a San Francisco legal organization representing laborers in Liberia. “There are a lot of deep issues of that society that would require a high level of due diligence.”

The World Bank, the Haitian government, and international mining company representatives walk into a hotel lobby to discuss the future of mining in Haiti. Guess who isn’t invited? Everyone else in Haiti. This isn’t a joke, but the premise of a crucial consultation offered to the public of an impoverished country that is poised to receive major foreign investment in a sector not known for its commitment to environmental or human rights standards.

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 2015 (IPS) – With Haiti’s Parliament having dissolved on Tuesday, civil society groups are worried that the Haitian president may move to unilaterally put in place a contentious revision to the country’s decades-old mining law. Starting in 2013, that draft was written with technical assistance from the World Bank. Last week, a half-dozen Haitian groups filed a formal appeal with the bank’s complaints office, expressing concern that the legislation had been crafted without the public consultation often required under the Washington-based development funder’s own policies.

A coalition of Haitian community leaders and organizations have filed a complaint with the World Bank’s independent inspection panel alleging the bank is backing controversial mining legislation pushed by the country’s parliament. The bill aims to increase foreign investment by expanding gold and mineral mining in the country.