In the News

The industrial park opened with big promises and big-name backers like Hillary Clinton and Sean Penn. But for the families evicted from their farmland, the development brought financial ruin.

Margaux Day, policy director at Accountability Counsel, says there has been a “culture of impunity” when it comes to mislabeling ESG investments. “Investors who are claiming to do ESG investments need to have accountability frameworks in place,” she says.

A coalition of African civil society organisations have bemoaned the lack of engagement between the African Development Bank and Civil Society. According to them, even though the bank had many policies tailored to assisting CSO’s, their implementation has been poor over the years.

Greenwashing – money that purports to address climate change but doesn’t, or even does the opposite – is nefarious because it is easily hidden, and therefore hard for investors and the average climate conscious consumer to address. But community-driven accountability tools exist that can prevent greenwashing, and it’s urgent that investors demand that they become common practice in a hundred trillion dollar industry that is scaling up with private sector support to address our climate crisis.

The still developing scandal at the United Nations Office for Project Services highlights what many of us in the development finance and impact-investing sectors already know: A lack of accountability and good governance inevitably leads to systemic abuse.

Investors and project planners must take cautionary measures when executing climate mitigation and clean energy projects to prevent adverse effects on Indigenous and other local communities, Accountability Counsel says. Yet during many of these projects’ planning phases, there is frequently a lack of local community engagement, a dearth of educational awareness and a failure to provide sufficient security.

The World Bank is reviewing a complaint by two Cambodian human rights groups alleging that microlenders backed by the development bank’s financing arm have engaged in predatory debt-collection practices, including pressuring borrowers to sell their land.

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.