2021 Round Up

The ten most popular newsletter articles of 2021.

Understanding Complaint Stage Outcomes

Complaint stage information is a critical component in helping us understand how accountability mechanisms function in practice. Recent updates to our methodology on complaint stages provide further insights into things like registration criteria, eligibility trends, and outputs for communities, helping inform a community-centered approach to our data.

The Eligibility Bottleneck

Understanding the reasons why complaints fail to advance beyond preliminary stages allows visibility into the system of accountability in international finance, and helps us evaluate how IAMs are functioning as sources of redress for communities facing harm.

Document Search

The Console’s newest feature is a powerful way to do highly targeted research by scanning through nearly 100,000 pages of complaint documents in seconds. Learn more about use cases and example searches.

Understanding Community Harm: Environmental Impacts

An analysis of complaints filed to all IAMs shows how even well-designed projects intending to alleviate poverty can lead to adverse impacts on the environment, biodiversity, access to water, and increased pollution. A critical way to understand and address unintended environmental harms is to hear from communities living near and working at project sites.

Understanding Community Harm: Gender Based Violence

In this article, we look closely at complaints that allege gender-based violence (GBV) and GBV-related harms, and theorize about why we don't see more GBV concerns in the complaints given the pervasiveness of GBV. This article is part 4 of a series exploring the issues raised in community-driven complaints to Independent Accountability Mechanisms (IAMs).

The Story of a Complaint

The Accountability Console has a page dedicated to each of the 1,395 complaints filed to accountability mechanisms. Complaint pages do more than display the data of a specific complaint; they tell the stories of communities facing harm, and their attempts to find remedy. Here is one example.

Uncovering and Evaluating Accountability "Dark Spots"

Why are investment flows in the Middle East and North Africa not being matched with commensurate community complaints? And what does this tell us about communities' ability to access remedy in these "dark spots"?

How to Compare IAM Policies with the Benchmark Reports Feature

Understanding how policies and operating procedures vary at different IAMs is a critical component of accessing the mechanisms for communities, and of informing advocacy for best practices at IAMs. The IAM Benchmark Report feature allows users to view and compare policies across mechanisms, and provides insights into how particular policies influence complaint outcomes.

Understanding Community Harm: Displacement

Nearly a quarter of all complaints filed to accountability offices raise issues related to displacement. We explore examples of how community complaints raising displacement issues are addressed through IAM processes, and the different outcomes and challenges communities face as a result of IAM processes.

Understanding Community Harm: Consultation, Disclosure, and Due Diligence

Part 1 of a series exploring the issues raised in community-driven complaints to Independent Accountability Mechanisms (IAMs) as captured on the Console, with analysis of how to understand, interpret, and compare the data.