In the News

Civil society leaders in Nepal continue to raise concerns about the in-development Tanahu hydropower project in Gandaki province, citing a lack of proper consultation, inadequate compensation for displacement, and environmental impacts.

As fossil-heavy nations race to expand solar and wind by 2030, weak environmental and social safeguards risk fuelling local pushback. Experts warn fast-tracked permitting must not come at the cost of proper spatial planning and public consultation.

The decade-old bank needs to be accountable for the displacement, loss of livelihood and environmental destruction caused by its lending.

Letting communities speak for Nature may be the best way to safeguard it.

The European Investment Bank has indicated it has no plans to halt existing funding to Israel despite receiving a formal complaint about its financing of €1 billion of projects in the country involving two UN blacklisted companies.

The new report exposes how development banks and the Nepalese government have systematically failed to protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights in four major hydropower projects.

The Civil Society Policy Forum (April 22-25) at this year’s World Bank Group-International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings hosted panel discussions that clarified and often challenged the policies and approaches of international financial institutions. Among the highlights was the session “Ensuring Accountability: The Challenges and Opportunities Posed by the Full Mutual Reliance Framework (FMRF),” which attracted a packed room of attendees.

In January 2025, Indorama Agro abruptly prepaid its loans and walked away from its contractual obligation to implement the EBRD’s E&S standards in Uzbekistan.

The World Bank has released the first-ever framework to address environmental and social harms caused by projects the bank financed through its private sector branches, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

A human rights group this week released a report accusing four hydropower projects in Nepal funded by multilateral development banks of violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, leading among other things to severe biodiversity harm.

A World Bank watchdog detailed allegations of displacement, pollution and other serious harms at the company, and criticized the global development agency’s handling of the project.

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project has become emblematic of the collision between grand development ambitions and grassroots suffering.

As the United States pulls back from global leadership, the recent European Investment Bank (EIB) group forum in Luxembourg came at a crucial time. As the world’s largest multilateral development bank, the EIB now has a chance to become a responsible development actor — but if and only if the institution properly addresses long-standing deficiencies of its Complaints Mechanism and commitment to accountability.

As public development banks gather for the Finance in Common Summit in Cape Town, civil society and community activists from across the world are demanding a shift to a community-led, equitable, and human rights-based development approach, that prioritise people and planet over profit.

In this episode, we sit down with Accountability Counsel, an organization that has been actively engaging with public development banks to push for greater accountability, transparency, and responsiveness to the communities they impact.

NGOs say the banks’ obligation to prevent and remedy harm “cannot be delegated.”

The U.S. development finance agency has invested nearly $50 billion in the past five years and tripled its staff as it has grown up, restructured, and grappled with its multiple mandates

Multilateral development banks have mechanisms to address and resolve community complaints. But stories from residents and civil society groups across Asia and the Caucasus show that even when such mechanisms are in place, accessing remedy is extremely challenging — if not impossible.

The World Bank Group’s new Corporate Scorecard fails to include indicators on accountability, a gap which is symptomatic of a broader failure by the WBG to internalise learning from its independent accountability mechanisms. Civil society remains concerned that Multilateral Development Banks’ ‘evolution’ processes risk deprioritising accountability in order to get money out the door more quickly.

IFC says it will evaluate development impact, potential for harm, and environmental and social considerations as it looks to leave projects. But will the new approach work?