Accountability Counsel amplifies the voices of communities around the world to protect their human rights and environment. As advocates for people harmed by internationally financed projects, we employ community driven and policy level strategies to access justice.
Impact
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Communities Supported50
Our impact includes redesigned projects that now reflect community needs, harm stopped and prevented to defend water resources, and agreements resulting in compensation.
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Policy Influenced66
We advocate for the world's 66 accountability offices to be independent, transparent, fair, and effective. We have improved policy and practice at development institutions, U.N. agencies, and within the OECD.
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Complaints Tracked1,258
We created and run the Accountability Console, a comprehensive database of community complaints filed with independent accountability mechanisms about the impacts of internationally financed projects.
News
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5 August, 2020USAID needs an independent accountability office to improve development outcomes
As USAID sets its course for the near future, it should respond to a key congressional directive to strengthen accountability for its development activities. Doing so will help the agency be well-positioned to ensure its projects avoid harm and achieve their intended impact. -
31 July, 2020Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives Hollow without Effective Grievance Redress Mechanisms to Underpin Sustainability, Ethical, or Fair Labor Standards – But There is Hope
Despite the promise of a new era of collaborative development, the premise of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives actually bringing communities to the table for cooperative dialogue has remained questionable. As the UNDP looks to implement certifiable standards for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in the impact investing field, will it heed the call for greater stakeholder engagement and much needed accountability? -
28 July, 2020Advancing Recommendations to Strengthen the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation’s Approach to Measuring Development Impact
Development institutions aim to finance projects that will lift vulnerable communities out of poverty. However, if not designed, implemented, or monitored properly, these projects can instead result in harm to communities and not achieve their development goals. This month, Accountability Counsel, Friends of the Earth, and several international partners submitted comments on the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation’s (DFC) new system of measuring development impacts – the Impact Quotient. -
22 July, 2020Accountability Counsel Submits Joint Letter to IFC/MIGA Executive Directors Seeking Transparency and Consultations on Key External Review
Yesterday, Accountability Counsel and 40 global partners submitted a joint letter to the Executive Directors of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), requesting the immediate disclosure of the long-awaited report of the external review of the IFC and MIGA’s accountability framework and for a subsequent… -
21 July, 2020Will impact investors welcome the arrival of mechanisms to redress community grievances?
A conservation project in the Tanintharyi region in southeast Myanmar aimed to protect the area from unsustainable palm oil and rubber plantations and overfishing. Indigenous Karen and other communities, however, objected that the top-down project cut them off from their livelihoods, jeopardized ceasefires that had ended a civil war and prevented the…
