Understanding Community Harm Part 1: Consultation and Due Diligence

May 2021

In this month's edition of the Accountability Console Newsletter, we begin a new series exploring the types of harm faced by communities from internationally financed projects. Research Intern Piper Goeking starts the series with a piece on the most commonly raised complaint issue: lack of consultation, disclosure, and due diligence.

We’re also rolling out Console Queries, a new section of the Newsletter. Need some help with your research? Have questions about the Console? Suggestions for Console content we should highlight next? Head to Console Queries to share your thoughts and get your questions answered. We look forward to hearing from you!

What's New

Updates to Console data, features, and functionality

Benchmark Comparison Charts: Improved the comparison charts on policy benchmark pages.
Updated Timeline Charts: Complaint comparison timeline chart shows better complaint counts.
Date Sorting: All tables, including lists of complaints, can now be sorted by date by clicking on the associated table header.

Research: Understanding Community Harm Part 1: Consultation, Disclosure, and Due Diligence

By Piper Goeking — May 1, 2021

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.

Console Queries

Highlights of user questions and suggestions

Do I need an account to access the data in the Console?

Information on individual complaints, including countries, projects, filers, sectors, issues raised, investment types, and documents are freely and openly available for all users regardless of registration status. All users can also access information on accountability offices and filter complaints by office. Account access provides additional features; for a full list of features or more information on account registration, visit our Support page.

What's the difference between the "Is Eligible" filter and the "Eligibility Outputs" filter?

The "Eligibility Outputs" option allows users to filter on the occurrence and completion of the eligibility process, regardless of the actual eligibility determination. The "Is Eligible" option allows users to filter on the determination of eligibility, revealing eligible complaints, ineligible complaints, and complaints where an eligibility determination was not or has not yet been made.

What does it mean for a complaint to be "closed with outputs"?

As stated in our glossary (which you can find under the Support tab of the sidebar), "a complaint is closed with outputs when the IAM process completes at least one substantive phase with a tangible output. For compliance review, a tangible output is a publicly disclosed compliance report. For dispute resolution, a tangible output is a settlement. Where sufficient information about dispute resolution settlements is available, those concerning only procedural matters or minor interim issues are not categorized as outputs."

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