Research - Accountability Counsel

Accountability Counsel’s Research program informs the movement for transparency and accountability in international finance. 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.

This program includes:

in-depth research to support our case and policy work,
data and analytics exposing patterns in our field, and
interactive tools to improve transparency and access to information.

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)
Nepali Livelihoods on the Line: The World Bank’s Duty to Address Harm from the Khimti-Dhalkebar Transmission Line

by Lawyers’ Association for Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous Peoples (LAHURNIP) and Accountability Counsel (2015)
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)
World Bank Reform in the ‘Post-Policy’ Era

By Natalie Bridgeman Fields (2001), as published in the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review. The article discusses internal staff incentive structure reforms required to ensure that World Bank policy around social and environmental protections is made meaningful.