Research - Accountability Counsel

Accountability Counsel’s Research program provides data and qualitative analysis to better inform the movement for transparency and accountability in international finance. We estimate that $12 trillion of investment a year flows into communities where we work to ensure accountability for human rights and environmental standards.

This program includes:

in-depth research to support our policy work and community cases,
large-scale data analytics about our field, and
development of a searchable, public database (live by the end of 2018) of all complaints every brought to every accountability office. The database also has a comparison tool for the policies of each accountability office so that they may be compared and evaluated. The database will be a useful tool for communities and their advocates, investors and institutions, researchers, and decision-makers. We are beta testing the database with select partners now.

Our research is, for the first time, exposing patterns that show advocates, policy-makers, and the institutions themselves best practice and where improvement is needed most. Our research is already influencing the direction of global accountability policy.

In addition, this program houses a set of internal tools to assist Accountability Counsel’s Communities and Policy teams to track the progress of their work, synchronize work between teams, and gauge effectiveness in relation to our broader theory of change.

Mapping Accountability: A Regional Look at Complaints in Development Finance

by Accountability Counsel (2016)
Glass Half Full? The State of Accountability in Development Finance

co-authored by Accountability Counsel and 10 other organizations (2016)
Scoring OPIC One Year On: Few Lessons Learned in OPIC’s Response to Disastrous Project in Liberia

by Accountability Counsel (2016)
Remedy Remains Rare

An analysis of 15 years of NCP cases and their contribution to improve access to remedy for victims of corporate misconduct by OECD Watch (2015)
Recent Trends in Accountability: Charting the Course of Complaint Offices

by Accountability Counsel (2014)
Fueling Humans Rights Disasters: An examination of the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation’s Investment in Buchanan Renewables

Annex to the complaint filed on January 22, 2014 to OPIC by farmers, charcoal producers, and workers harmed by Buchanan Renewables’ operations in Liberia, by Accountability Counsel and Green Advocates International (2014)
An Environmental Due Diligence Failure (Annex to The World Bank’s Duty in PNG)

A critique of the palm oil mill effluent study of July 25, 2011 related to Inspection Panel request no. RQ 09/10, Smallholder Agriculture Development Project (SADP) (2011)
The World Bank’s Duty in PNG: Actions Needed to Prevent a Worsening of Poverty and Environmental Degradation from the Smallholder Agricultural Development Project

Case summary and duties of the World Bank in Papa New Guinea, by Accountability Counsel and Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights (CELCOR) (2011)