In the News

Megan Pearson ’21 reflects on her time so far as a Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow at Accountability Counsel’s Policy Team.

In spite of clear evidence, DFIs largely refuse to provide remedy for harm caused by their own projects. A recent report from the United Nations confirms that the state of remedy in development finance is lacking and that DFIs are not being held to account. It also sets out a road map for what DFIs need to do.

IMM standards are numerous and range from specific disclosures to high-level principles, but they largely attempt to achieve the same thing – accurate assessment of and reporting on an investment’s net impact on people and the planet. Community-informed IMM requires investors to put into place mechanisms to hear from communities and redress harm.

Three years ago, hundreds of farmers displaced by the Caracol Industrial Park forged an agreement with the Haitian government and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) after years of demanding compensation. In exchange for relocating, the farmers affected were supposed to receive direct compensation in the form of jobs, and in some cases, new plots of land.

Local residents and their advocates say infrastructure improvements in the surrounding region should also take place along with growth inside the industrial park, which largely contains textile factory jobs.

Three years ago, a community in northeast Haiti was jubilant: They had reached a deal with the Haitian government and the Inter-American Development Bank to compensate for harms they suffered as a result of an IDB-financed industrial park that had seized their land for construction. But more than three years later, many families who were supposed to be compensated are still waiting.

Three years after the IDB and the Haitian government signed the binding agreement, many families still await compensation for the seizure of their land — even as the bank in November approved an additional $65 million for the park’s expansion.

The World Bank is entering into a dispute resolution process over a major urban project — with a total expected cost of some $183 million — in Kampala, Uganda, that faced strong pushback from the local community.

The African Development Bank recently updated its accountability office, the Independent Recourse Mechanism. What do these changes mean for communities seeking justice for harm stemming from the AfDB’s projects?

Founder sabbaticals are as important for the organization as for the well-being of the founder. But for a founder’s sabbatical to build organizational resilience, examine internal power dynamics, and prepare for the founder’s eventual (and inevitable) departure, organizations must plan for, resource, and require them.

There are about 5 billion people globally whose justice needs are unmet, including those who cannot obtain justice for everyday problems, those who are excluded from opportunities the law provides, and those who live in extreme conditions of injustice. This article summarizes key takeaways from MCLD’s recent discussion on access to justice, featuring AC’s Stephanie Amoako.

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group (www.AfDB.org) have approved a new policy framework for the Independent Recourse Mechanism (IRM) aimed at strengthening accountability and providing more effective recourse to people affected by Bank-financed operations.

While civil society has welcomed the creation of a dispute resolution mechanism, it has voiced concerns that the Accountability Mechanism’s structure may undermine the Inspection Panel’s independence, and lamented the lack of a mechanism for provision of remedy to affected communities.

BIC, Accountability Counsel, and several other partners provided the IDB with recommendations on how to effectively implement the Office of Evaluations and Oversight’s (OVE) Evaluation of the Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism (MICI). The IDB must strengthen MICI’s independence, capacity, and corrective action practices to enhance the mechanism’s legitimacy and ability to provide remedy to project-affected communities.

During the first phase, in 2014, authorities constructed a channel diversion which Accountability Counsel — an international civil society organization that advocates for communities harmed by projects like this — said ran through the land of many local residents in Kawaala, as well as cut others off from easy access to schools and basic services.

The community members in Kawaala Zone II in Kampala, Uganda have filed a complaint to the World Bank’s Inspection Panel following attempts to evict them from their homes and farmland without adequate compensation. The eviction is aimed at paving way for the Lubigi drainage channel expansion.

On 1 July, the board of directors of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private sector lending arm, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the World Bank’s political risk insurance arm, announced that it had finalised the development of a new policy for the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), the independent accountability mechanism of IFC and MIGA.

Community members in Kawaala Zone II in Kampala, Uganda have filed a complaint to the World Bank’s Inspection Panel following attempts to evict them from their homes and farmland without adequate compensation.The eviction is intended to make way for the expansion of the Lubigi drainage channel, a project funded by the World Bank.

The International Finance Corporation’s new accountability policy came into effect Thursday, the culmination of a yearslong process that included a landmark case the institution lost before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Indigenous rights are at a critical crossroads after communities in Nepal have succeeded in holding the European Union’s investment bank accountable for its role in forcibly constructing a hydropower project on Indigenous land.