Reporting Accountability October 2024

Welcome to the October 2024 round-up of accountability knowledge products. This issue, a brace of reports on responding to retaliation, from the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (IFC) and the Accountability Mechanism (ADB), lead the way. We also highlight the publication Bankwatch, from the NGO Forum on ADB. The UN Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals has released guidelines for a just transition, while civil society calls out public development banks for their role in the global economy. In a separate report, the example of Haiti is used to illustrate how the fight for remedy continues after agreements are reached on behalf of complainants. We close out the round-up with another pair of reports from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on access to remedy in cases of business-related human rights abuse.

Guide to approaches to risks of retaliation by the Asian Development Bank’s Accountability Mechanism: processes and activities

ADB-AM Guide to Approach to Risks of Retaliation

This short guide summarizes the approaches of the Accountability Mechanism of the ADB to addressing retaliation risk against complainants and others associated with complaints, as well as those who face risk through association with the mechanism’s activities. It lays out key principles it will draw on in order to identify and mitigate such risks, and to respond to any allegations of retaliation. The Accountability Mechanism is preparing further practical resources, to be finalized in 2024, so its staff are enabled to implement the approaches described.

Independent review of CAO approach to responding to concerns of threats and reprisals

In 2018, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (IFC) released its “Approach to responding to concerns of threats and reprisals”. An independent external review now examines the evolution of CAO’s approach in the context of best practices, including feedback from civil society and other stakeholders. The review makes recommendations to improve accessibility; improve data management for better analysis; strengthen response tools to help learning, sharing, and reporting; ensure continuity of care and security for complainants; develop internal protocols and resources to safeguard staff; and collaborate more systematically with other independent accountability mechanisms, IFC/MIGA, and civil society.

Bankwatch: official publication of the NGO Forum on ADB

The NGO Forum on ADB follows the projects, programs, and policies of the Asian Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Bankwatch, its official publication, covers a diversity of topics relevant to accountability. A highlight of the June 2024 issue is an article on the struggle of an indigenous community in Nepal to secure land-for-land compensation in relation to a hydropower project. The September 2024 issue is a special edition that focuses on analyzing the Asian Development Bank’s new environmental and social safeguards, which are currently being reviewed by its Board as a replacement for the 15-year-old Safeguard Policy Statement.

Resourcing the energy transition: principles to guide critical energy transition minerals towards equity and justice

With the demand for critical minerals to power renewable energy set to almost triple by 2030, there is a high risk of commodity dependence, geopolitical tensions, and environmental and social challenges, particularly for the vulnerable communities that live in the vicinity of extractive mines and those exploited along the value chain. The UN’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals was set up in response, to support a just transition based on principles on issues key to the “just and equitable management of sustainable, responsible and reliable value chains for terrestrial critical energy transition minerals.”

The Secretary-General calls the report “a how-to guide to help generate prosperity and equality alongside clean power.” Seven Guiding Principles and five Actionable Recommendations chart a course for fairness, transparency, investment, sustainability, and human rights. Importantly, the scope of the panel report extends beyond the locations of transition mineral mines to the whole value chain, from mining, refining, and manufacturing through to transport and end-of-use recycling.

Demystifying development finance: how public development banks impact peoples and the planet

The Evolution Roadmap of the World Bank is characteristic of a trend in recent years of public development banks (PDBs) seeking to increase their role in tackling the “polycrisis” of climate change, global poverty, and conflict. A report from the Coalition for Human Rights in Development, drafted by over 100 civil society activists, suggests that PDBs, far from resolving these crises, are contributing to them. “Demystifying development finance” pinpoints the push toward privatization, an extractivist and top-down approach, and the limitations of PDBs’ social and environmental safeguards as responsible. Numerous case studies provide lively context to this argument.

After the agreement: implementing remedy for displacement in northern Haiti

An Accountability Note from the Accountability Research Center details the experience of 400 families in Haiti who were evicted from their farmland to make way for an industrial park mainly financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the US government. The Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism (MICI) of the IDB helped negotiate an agreement, but monitoring and advocacy over six years oversaw the struggle of the families to receive remedy that had been agreed on. The Note highlights the disconnect between the emphasis placed by IAMs on reaching an agreement, and the challenges to implementing remedy in the aftermath. The experience of Haiti is by no means unique, and development banks as well as IAMs should be prepared to engage in monitoring to realize remedy agreements.

Access to remedy in cases of business-related human rights abuse: a practical guide for state-based judicial mechanisms

Access to remedy in cases of business-related human rights abuse: an interpretive guide (advance version)

The OHCHR Accountability and Remedy Project aims to strengthen implementation of the third pillar of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, regarding access to remedy. Two recent publications expand on access to remedy in cases of business-related human rights abuse.

An advance version of an interpretive guide supplies background explanation of the principles of the access to remedy pillar, including Principle 31 on effectiveness criteria for non-judicial grievance mechanisms. It aims to equip specialist and non-specialist readers with the knowledge needed to both understand and advocate for access to remedy across the diverse contexts in which business practices can adversely affect human rights.

A practical guide focuses on improving the effectiveness of state-based judicial mechanisms. It captures lessons from good practices with regard to the design and operation of state-based judicial mechanisms. States aiming to strengthen their domestic legal responses to business and human rights challenges, covering both public law and private law claims, should find this guide invaluable.

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.

Reporting Accountability October 2024

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