Straight to content

Glass half full?

Posted in category:
News
Published on:

A new report launched today documents the hurdles communities and workers face in obtaining remedy from development banks whose projects cause them harm. The 11 civil society organizations that authored the report, Glass Half Full? The State of Accountability in Development Finance, call on development banks and the governments that run them to strengthen their systems for providing remedy to those harmed by the activities financed by the banks.

Glass Half Full?

As a result of pressure from civil society, many development banks have established independent accountability mechanisms—also called complaint mechanisms—that receive complaints from communities and workers adversely affected by bank-financed activities. While the structure and procedures of these mechanisms vary between banks, they can offer to convene the complainants and the borrower (the bank’s client) to resolve the conflict, conduct an investigation to determine if the bank’s environmental and social policies have been violated, or both.

The complaint mechanisms are often the only available recourse for communities harmed by development projects and currently represent the only avenue to hold development banks accountable to their environmental and social commitments.

Since the 1994 creation of the World Bank’s Inspection Panel—the first independent accountability mechanism, there have been 758 complaints filed to the mechanisms at 11 development banks. ‘Glass half full?’ assesses the extent to which the development banks and their complaint mechanisms are equipped to handle complaints from affected people.

Findings

What the report finds is that even though complainants are undoubtedly better off than they would be in the absence of any complaint procedure, the outcome rarely provides adequate remedy for the harms experienced by people and communities. This is largely due to the development banks themselves, which undermine the effectiveness of their own complaint mechanisms by limiting their mandate and failing to uphold their own responsibilities in the complaint process. The banks impede the accessibility and effectiveness of the complaint mechanisms from the very beginning by failing to require their borrowers to tell project-affected people about their existence. Even more critically, the banks have limited the mandates of the mechanisms so that they cannot issue binding decisions. Rather, the outcome of complaints depends primarily on the good will of the banks or their borrowers: unless governments and companies voluntarily agree to resolve the conflict through dialogue, or the bank voluntarily agrees to address violations of its policies exposed through an investigation conducted by the mechanism, complainants are left without a solution.

Case Studies

The case studies in the report illustrate how the existing system at development banks falls short:

Recommendations

The report includes a number of best practice recommendations that should be adopted at all development banks. However, it concludes that meaningful remedy for complainants and prevention of future harms will require more than best practices. A new accountability system must be established as a matter of urgency, with complaint mechanisms empowered to make binding decisions on banks and their borrowers, and an end to immunity for development banks in national courts.

Download

Download the report Glass Half Full? and its annexes here.

Partners

Posted in category:
News
Published on:

Related content

Don't want to miss anything?

Sign up for our newsletter and always stay up to date on information and analysis on corporate power issues.