The hidden harms of road projects

"We have obviously been the victims of Project Pro-Routes Rn2, and we will be the victims of others if nothing is done." 

This testimony from community members displaced by the World Bank’s road project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reflects a devastating reality. The High Priority Roads Reopening and Maintenance Project - the World Bank-financed initiative known as Pro-Routes - promised to improve connectivity and economic opportunity. Instead, it uprooted families, destroyed livelihoods, and left communities in crisis. Contractors seized a quarry that had sustained local workers for generations, offering no compensation. Those who resisted faced violent retaliation. Women reported cases of sexual violence. Men, forced into unemployment, became easy targets for recruitment by armed groups.

Though extreme, this case is not unique. From Pakistan to Peru, road projects—though a familiar part of daily life for most of us—are among the most harmful. Preliminary research conducted by Stanford students for Accountability Counsel sought to identify relevant sub-sectors for complaints raised to Independent Accountability Mechanisms (IAMs) on the Accountability Console database. Out of the subset of complaints analyzed by Stanford students (1,648 complaints), a startling trend becomes clear: “Infrastructure: Transportation: Roads” is the single highest complaint sub-sector, with 259 complaints (16% of complaints analyzed).

The data

In recent decades, large infrastructure projects have increasingly been subject to safeguard policies intended to protect the rights and well-being of affected communities. Road projects are no exception. They are frequently labeled high-risk and subject to strict requirements—Resettlement Action Plans, Environmental and Social Impact Assessments, Indigenous Peoples frameworks, and grievance redress mechanisms among them.

And yet, as shown in Figure 1, road projects have generated more grievances than any other type of development investment.

Figure 1 - Shows the complaint count by sub-sector for the most frequently cited project sectors in the Console dataset (n = 1,648).

As seen in Figure 2, displacement—both physical and economic—is the most common issue raised in road-related complaints. These harms aren’t the result of absent planning. They occur despite the existence of formal protections. The problem may be twofold: sometimes, certain risks may be overlooked entirely in early project planning. Other times, protections that are drafted on paper simply don’t get implemented—or are implemented too late.

Figure 2 - Highlights the distribution of complaint issues specific to road projects, based on cases recorded in the Console.

Why roads?

Development banks understand that road projects can carry serious risks. These projects are often flagged as high-risk precisely because of their scale and disruptive potential—not just to physical spaces, but to livelihoods, mobility, and social cohesion. What’s troubling is how serious risks are at times underestimated or not formally acknowledged in early project planning, and even when recognized, how often risk recognition fails to translate into meaningful protection.

Take Pro-Routes: As a Category A project, the World Bank required a full suite of safeguard documents: an ESIA, a Resettlement Action Plan, Indigenous Peoples protections, and a grievance mechanism. But when implementation began, protections unraveled. Contractors displaced families without compensation. Military forces were brought in to suppress opposition. Gender-based violence—though widely reported by affected women—had not been accounted for in any planning documents. The Bank’s IAM, the Inspection Panel, confirmed that serious harm was linked to project implementation and cited “significant weaknesses in safeguard supervision and reporting.” The Panel ultimately recommended a full investigation into the Bank’s potential non-compliance with its own policies.

On the other hand, the Gazela Bridge Rehabilitation project: A project funded by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Serbia. Notably, despite the scale of the project and the known risk of mass displacement, the EIB did not assign a formal environmental or social risk category to this project, citing its exclusion from EU EIA directives. The EIB and EBRD did, however, explicitly require a Resettlement Action Plan as a condition for disbursement. And yet, before the plan was finalized, approved, or publicly disclosed, local authorities forcibly evicted hundreds of Roma families. 

In response to these events, a complaint was submitted in 2009 to the EIB’s IAM, the Complaints Mechanism, citing failures to uphold the Bank’s own social and transparency standards. According to section 6.4.2 of the Conclusions Report, people were moved into metal shipping containers—some housing up to 12 people in a single 12m² unit—often without reliable electricity, sanitation, or access to income. A site audit later found that 80% of units were leaking, posing health and safety hazards, and that affected families considered their situation worse than before the resettlement. The EIB Complaints Mechanism found that although Roma displacement had been flagged in early planning documents, the Bank failed to adequately assess social risks or ensure protections were in place before the project moved forward.

Going forward

Roads are everywhere—cutting across cities, villages, farmland, and forests. They are some of the most visible development interventions in the world, and development banks already recognize that many carry a high risk of harm. Even when these projects are labeled high-risk (Category A/1), and safeguards like Resettlement Action Plans and Environmental and Social Impact Assessments are prepared, they often still result in serious harm. This raises critical questions: Are communities being properly consulted in relation to safeguards? Are safeguards being properly implemented? Are clients and banks being held accountable? 

Communities must be consulted before construction begins and should have meaningful avenues to challenge harmful decisions. Consultation should not be a procedural formality—it must be an ongoing process, enabling affected people to meaningfully participate in and influence project decisions before it is too late. If displacement is unavoidable, some form of remedy, whether resettlement, land, cash or livelihoods, must be sufficient, timely, and equitable. 

As part of a broader research effort at Accountability Counsel to understand IAM outcomes, researchers interviewed communities around the world about their experiences with IAM processes. Complainants frequently mentioned that the commitments made during the dispute resolution or compliance review process were not fully honored. Many spoke of partial or insufficient remedy. When remedy was delayed or inadequate, displaced families were often unable to rebuild their lives. 

And yet this pattern continues. Road projects keep moving forward, even as the same types of harm keep repeating—because the policies meant to prevent them aren't being enforced. There is no justifiable reason why roads should remain the most complained-about sub-sector. We have significant evidence from complaints showing inadequate consultation and systemic failures in risk categorization and safeguard implementation. Yet too often, risks are underestimated, safeguards poorly implemented, and affected communities left without protection or remedy. Without meaningful reform, these projects risk continuing to harm the very communities they are meant to serve.