Welcome to the July 2024 round-up of accountability knowledge products. This issue, we have an exciting range of videos, podcasts, blogs, interactive websites, and reports for you to catch up on. Frontline Defenders and the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre both address the plight of human rights defenders (HRDs) across the world. The role of business interests in the violation of human rights is further explored in a revamped blog by the Business and Human Rights Journal, while the Danish Institute for Human Rights looks at the role of intermediated finance. The Working Group for the Human Rights Council of the United Nations has produced a report on how businesses should align their interests with regard to human rights. We have also unearthed a podcast from Accountable Now, which features inspiring chats with young activists about what meaningful youth engagement means to them.

Frontline Defenders Global Analysis 2023/24

Human rights defenders and business 2023

Accountable Now’s mini-dose of CSO accountability

Accountable Now, a global membership platform that supports civil society organisations to be more transparent, responsive, impact-focused, and community-led, offers a lively miniseries on meaningful youth engagement. The episodes (seven and counting) feature conversations with young people speaking to young people about what meaningful engagement means to them. Host Katie McCarthy engages an extremely diverse cast of youth activists, from Scouts and Girl Guides to musicians and artists to young people working at a who’s who of youth organizations such as Accountability Lab, CIVICUS, Restless Development, and Accountable Now itself.

Business and Human Rights Journal blog

A revamped blog from the Business and Human Rights Journal continues to provide a platform for scholarly debate on all issues at the intersection of business and human rights. The latest series of posts covers business and human rights issues in geographies as diverse as the African continent, South Korea, China, Canada, and the Western Balkans. It’s worth mentioning that the latest issue of the journal is open access, and that the journal recently held a “blog symposium” titled “Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Setting the Stage”. There’s a rich vein of reading material here for anyone interested in corporate due diligence.

Analyzing development finance institutions’ management of human rights risks in intermediated finance

Development finance institutions (DFIs) have traditionally provided direct funding to projects, but in the last two decades have increased indirect or intermediated finance, wherein funding is provided through financial intermediaries like commercial banks and investment funds. "Fit for Purpose," by the Danish Institute for Human Rights, considers whether DFI environmental and social policies for intermediated finance can prevent and address negative human rights impacts.

Using the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as a standard, this report identifies gaps in respect to the scope of application of DFIs’ policies to intermediated finance operations and transactions, the quality and adequacy of the DFIs’ management of environmental and social risks, and barriers to remedy for those potentially and actually affected by financial intermediary funding. A companion brief provides an overview.

Report of the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises

Accountability+ As a bonus, we have included a video of MICI presenting a two-minute breakdown of its reflection note on "A Human Approach to Complaints: Learning from the Early Stages of the MICI Process." It’s a reminder to independent accountability mechanisms that they should keep innovating, including through the use of audiovisual media, to spread the word about how they can contribute to accountability.

We keep our eyes and ears open for news in the field of accountability, but we need your help to make sure we don’t miss anything important. Please write to us about any forthcoming publications at accountability@worldbank.org.