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On 17 September, the EBRD’s Project Complaints Mechanism (PCM) team played host to around 40 colleagues from similar mechanisms at 15 other international financial organisations, as well as to NGOs and civil society representatives, at a one-day Open Symposium on the Practice of Independent Accountability Mechanisms
On 17 September, the EBRD’s Project Complaints Mechanism (PCM) team played host to around 40 colleagues from similar mechanisms at 15 other international financial organisations, as well as to NGOs and civil society representatives, at a one-day Open Symposium on the Practice of Independent Accountability Mechanisms
Governor Hogan Signs an Executive Order Regarding School Accountability Initiatives. by Joe Andrucyk at Governors Reception Room, 100 State Circle, Annapolis MD 21401
Governor Hogan Signs an Executive Order Regarding School Accountability Initiatives. by Joe Andrucyk at Governors Reception Room, 100 State Circle, Annapolis MD 21401
The Inspection Panel is completing 25 years in its role, as an accountability mechanism of the World Bank. As you are aware, the Bank’s failure to comply with its operating policies was seen by the entire world in the Bank’s financing with the Sardar Sarovar Dam project on River Narmada. The tenacity of massive grass-roots uprisings from our communities in the 80’s and the sustained hard work of our social movements along with our resoluteness to link it with international coalitions to question the hegemony of the Bank, subsequently led the Bank, for the first time, to commission an independent review of its project. The Independent Review Committee (Morse Committee) constituted by the Bank in 1991 to review the social and environmental costs and benefits of the dam, after years of consistent struggle by Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement) and its allies led to a demand from the civil society around the globe for the creation of a grievance redressal system for project-affected communities, which ultimately pressurized the Bank to constitute the Inspection Panel in 1993. We expected this might be a crucial backstop and an opportunity for us to raise our issues of livelihoods, economic loss, displacement from our lands, alienation from natural resources, destruction of environment and threat to our biodiversity and cultural hotspots, where Bank invested in large, supposedly ‘development’ projects like mega dams, energy and other infrastructure projects. Yet, the outcome we expected rarely delivered sufficient remedy for the harm and losses people have experienced over the years.
A number of accountability mechanisms over the next couple of decades in several development finance institutions were formed following the model of World Bank, commonly known as ‘Independent Accountability Mechanisms’[IAMs]. Each year the number of complaints rise which is an indication of the increasing number of grievous projects happening around the world. While IAMs of most MDBs are advertised to provide strong and just processes, many of our experiences imply that the banks are accommodating practices which suit their own needs and their clients, which are borrowing countries and agencies, and not the people for whom the IAMs were built to serve.
Many a time, we have been disappointed by these mechanisms, since these are designed by the banks who are lending for disastrous projects in our lands. And as a result, the already existing narrow mandate of IAMs is further restricted.
In our efforts to hold the lending bank accountable, the communities are always presented with the arduous process of learning the complex formalities and detailed procedures to initially approach the IAMs and get our grievances registered. Our many years’ time and energy then is channelised into seeing through the various cycles of these complaint handling mechanisms, that our entire efforts go into this process, and often our complaint gets dropped off in midst of the procedural rules of the IAMs. People are made to wait many months to clear procedural levels and our cases with the IAMs get highly unpredictable. Further, we face intimidation and reprisals from the state and project agencies for having contacted the IAMs who themselves do not possess any authority to address the violations hurled out to us when we seek dignity, fair treatment and justice from them. There are many of us who feel a loss of morale after long years of struggling with lenders when we fail to see concrete benefits or changes in our circumstances, by which time considerable irreplaceable harm is already done to our lives, environment and livelihoods.
In this manner, our immediate and larger goal of holding banks for their failure to consult with and obtain consent from communities before devising action plans for our lands, water and forests is deflected in the pretext of problem-solving and grievance hearing offered to us in the name of IAMs.
With over 50 registered complaints sent to different IAMS from India in the past 25 years, many more left unregistered due to technical reasons and only a few got investigated, assessed and monitored at different levels, we have a baggage of mixed experiences with the IAMs. A few of the prominent cases from India apart from Narmada project are Vishnugad Pipalkoti Hydro Electric Project [WB’s IP], Tata Mega Ultra-01/Mundra and Anjar [IFC’s CAO & ADB’s CRP], India Infrastructure Fund-01/Dhenkanal District [IFC’s CAO], Allain Duhangan Hydro Power Limited-01/Himachal Pradesh [IFC’s CAO] and Mumbai Urban Transport Project (2009) [WB’s IP].
As we now know, what is being witnessed recently is an influx of approved and proposed investments majorly in energy, transport, steel, roads, urban projects, bullet trains, industrial zones/corridors, smart cities, water privatization and other mega projects in India. This has been financed from different multilateral and bilateral sources, foreign corporations, private banks as well as Export-Import Banks (ExIm Banks). It has become a brutal challenge for communities, social movements and CSOs, with lenders and governments constantly shutting their eyes and ears to us who demand accountability for their actions. A compelling and timely need has arisen among diverse groups amongst us to gather together and critically analyze the various trajectories of our engagements with accountability mechanisms of MDBs in order to bring together past 25 years’ learning, insights and reflections of various actors of this accountability process. This urging demand is also an attempt to define the collective experiences in India among our social movements, projected-affected communities and CSOs with IAMs and lending banks, especially appropriating the global political opportunity of Inspection Panel celebrating its 25 years this year.
Speakers:
Thomas Franco, Former General Secretary, AlI India Bank Officers’ Confederation
Arun Kumar, Eminent scholar, Former Professor Jawaharlal Nehru University
C.P. Chandrashekar, Economist, Professor Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Sucheta Dalal, Managing Editor, Moneylife
Soumya Dutta, National Convener, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha
Dunu Roy, Hazards Center, New Delhi
Medha Patkar, Senior Activist, Narmada Bachao Andolan
Tani Alex, Centre for Financial Accountability
M J Vijayan, Activist and Political commentator
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Anirudha Nagar, Accountability Counsel
Madhuresh Kumar, National Alliance of People’s Movements
A J Vijayan, Chairperson, Western Ghats and Coastal area Protection Forum
Meera Sanghamitra, National Aliance of People’s Movements
Vimal bhai, Matu Jan Sangathan, Uttarakhand
Daniel Adler, Senior Specialist, Compliance Advisor Ombudsman
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Birgit Kuba, Operations Officer, Inspection Panel
Anuradha Munshi, Centre for Financial Accountability
Bharat Patel, General Secretary, Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan,Gujarat
Awadhesh Kumar, Srijan Lokhit Samiti
Amulya Kumar Nayak, Odisha Chas Parivesh Surekhsa Parishad, Odisha
Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Legal Scholar
Manshi Asher, Himdhara Environment Research and Action Collective, Himachal Pradesh
Jean Yves Maganda-Belalengbi – monitoring, accountability and learning assistant (SOS Kinderdorpen in Bossangoa)
“The kids who come to our child-friendly spaces live nearby, 5 km away at the most. They come by foot, the younger ones assisted by adult caretakers. About half of them are orphans. They all witnessed the horrors of war. Some have seen how their parents were killed. Many of the girls have been abused and violated. A lot of the older boys are former child soldiers.
We have classes for 3 different age groups, from 3 years old up to 17. They come here between regular school hours. This way we make sure they aren’t forced to work. Or don’t run into problems, wandering off all alone. Because that’s when kids are abused or led astray, when they are on their own and adult family members are working in the field.
These kids don’t know each other’s individual stories. But together we dance, we play games, tell fairy tales, play football, act in theatre plays. Younger kids also take extra reading and writing classes, older children are taught languages and arithmetic. We help them discover their bodies, to feel confident and secure, to explore their dreams, thoughts, and talents. We talk about anatomy, about sexuality, about abuse, about human rights, about what is allowed and what isn’t.
Our child-friendly spaces are located in the vicinity of regular schools, because that’s where families with kids live. We work complementary to what formal schools offer. Every day, we give them snacks and drinks. Once a week we offer hot meals.
Some kids are so traumatized they stay silent. They can’t dance. Very delicately, our psychosocial workers and psychologists assist and comfort them.
More than 10% of the children are malnourished. We refer them to the nearest Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital. And through the DRA we support parents of severely malnourished children financially, allowing them to buy extra food for their children and to supplement their income. We also offer legal assistance as well as psychosocial support to young single mothers, girls who are victims of gender-based violence and girls who were forced and sold into marriage or who run this risk.
Our community workers are constantly on the look-out for abandoned and abused children and refer them to our child-friendly spaces. We work with parents as well, to make sure kids aren’t sent to the fields as farmers or spend too much time fetching water. We support them in catering and caring for kids they had to abandon. Or we try to find foster care in wider family networks.
We offer this kind of protection to 3000 children and young people who are scarred by war, in five different child-friendly spaces.”
---
Since 2015, the Dutch Relief Alliance, led by Cordaid, reached out to thousands of war-affected people in the Central African Republic. We joined hands with Central African responders to provide shelter, protection, food and livelihood assistance, clean water and cash support.
Larry and I were roommate my Junior year in college. He loved God and created many memories for me. Although we talked a lot about God, we were never accountability partners. I just thought the picture worked well for the blog post for accountability.
Syrian human rights defenders spoke out at a Human Rights Council side event September 21 to appeal to the international community to work to end the conflict in Syria and to ensure justice and accountability for the victims.
The discussion reinfored the essential role of Syrian civil society in the pursuit of a political solution to the war. The
The event was organized by No Peace Without Justice and the Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum, and co-sponsored by the U.S. and other national delegations to the HRC.
Speakers included: Hussein Sabbagh, Secretary General Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum; Niccolò Figà-Talamanca, Secretary General No Peace Without Justice; Riyad Al-Najem, Hurras, Syrian child protection network; Husam Alkatlaby, The Violations Documentation Center in Syria; Ola Aljounde, Women Now for Development; Diab Serrih, The Day After, Ambassador Peter Matt (Liechtenstein); Ambassador Julian Braithwaite (UK) and Ambassaodr Maurizio Enrico Serra (Italy). Ambassador Keith Harper, U.S. Representative to the Human Rights Council delivered concluding remarks.
U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers
Syrian human rights defenders spoke out at a Human Rights Council side event September 21 to appeal to the international community to work to end the conflict in Syria and to ensure justice and accountability for the victims.
The discussion reinfored the essential role of Syrian civil society in the pursuit of a political solution to the war. The
The event was organized by No Peace Without Justice and the Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum, and co-sponsored by the U.S. and other national delegations to the HRC.
Speakers included: Hussein Sabbagh, Secretary General Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum; Niccolò Figà-Talamanca, Secretary General No Peace Without Justice; Riyad Al-Najem, Hurras, Syrian child protection network; Husam Alkatlaby, The Violations Documentation Center in Syria; Ola Aljounde, Women Now for Development; Diab Serrih, The Day After, Ambassador Peter Matt (Liechtenstein); Ambassador Julian Braithwaite (UK) and Ambassaodr Maurizio Enrico Serra (Italy). Ambassador Keith Harper, U.S. Representative to the Human Rights Council delivered concluding remarks.
U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers
On 17 September, the EBRD’s Project Complaints Mechanism (PCM) team played host to around 40 colleagues from similar mechanisms at 15 other international financial organisations, as well as to NGOs and civil society representatives, at a one-day Open Symposium on the Practice of Independent Accountability Mechanisms
On 17 September, the EBRD’s Project Complaints Mechanism (PCM) team played host to around 40 colleagues from similar mechanisms at 15 other international financial organisations, as well as to NGOs and civil society representatives, at a one-day Open Symposium on the Practice of Independent Accountability Mechanisms
This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report:
www.gao.gov/products/GAO-23-106011
Missile Defense: Annual Goals Unmet for Deliveries and Testing
The Inspection Panel is completing 25 years in its role, as an accountability mechanism of the World Bank. As you are aware, the Bank’s failure to comply with its operating policies was seen by the entire world in the Bank’s financing with the Sardar Sarovar Dam project on River Narmada. The tenacity of massive grass-roots uprisings from our communities in the 80’s and the sustained hard work of our social movements along with our resoluteness to link it with international coalitions to question the hegemony of the Bank, subsequently led the Bank, for the first time, to commission an independent review of its project. The Independent Review Committee (Morse Committee) constituted by the Bank in 1991 to review the social and environmental costs and benefits of the dam, after years of consistent struggle by Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement) and its allies led to a demand from the civil society around the globe for the creation of a grievance redressal system for project-affected communities, which ultimately pressurized the Bank to constitute the Inspection Panel in 1993. We expected this might be a crucial backstop and an opportunity for us to raise our issues of livelihoods, economic loss, displacement from our lands, alienation from natural resources, destruction of environment and threat to our biodiversity and cultural hotspots, where Bank invested in large, supposedly ‘development’ projects like mega dams, energy and other infrastructure projects. Yet, the outcome we expected rarely delivered sufficient remedy for the harm and losses people have experienced over the years.
A number of accountability mechanisms over the next couple of decades in several development finance institutions were formed following the model of World Bank, commonly known as ‘Independent Accountability Mechanisms’[IAMs]. Each year the number of complaints rise which is an indication of the increasing number of grievous projects happening around the world. While IAMs of most MDBs are advertised to provide strong and just processes, many of our experiences imply that the banks are accommodating practices which suit their own needs and their clients, which are borrowing countries and agencies, and not the people for whom the IAMs were built to serve.
Many a time, we have been disappointed by these mechanisms, since these are designed by the banks who are lending for disastrous projects in our lands. And as a result, the already existing narrow mandate of IAMs is further restricted.
In our efforts to hold the lending bank accountable, the communities are always presented with the arduous process of learning the complex formalities and detailed procedures to initially approach the IAMs and get our grievances registered. Our many years’ time and energy then is channelised into seeing through the various cycles of these complaint handling mechanisms, that our entire efforts go into this process, and often our complaint gets dropped off in midst of the procedural rules of the IAMs. People are made to wait many months to clear procedural levels and our cases with the IAMs get highly unpredictable. Further, we face intimidation and reprisals from the state and project agencies for having contacted the IAMs who themselves do not possess any authority to address the violations hurled out to us when we seek dignity, fair treatment and justice from them. There are many of us who feel a loss of morale after long years of struggling with lenders when we fail to see concrete benefits or changes in our circumstances, by which time considerable irreplaceable harm is already done to our lives, environment and livelihoods.
In this manner, our immediate and larger goal of holding banks for their failure to consult with and obtain consent from communities before devising action plans for our lands, water and forests is deflected in the pretext of problem-solving and grievance hearing offered to us in the name of IAMs.
With over 50 registered complaints sent to different IAMS from India in the past 25 years, many more left unregistered due to technical reasons and only a few got investigated, assessed and monitored at different levels, we have a baggage of mixed experiences with the IAMs. A few of the prominent cases from India apart from Narmada project are Vishnugad Pipalkoti Hydro Electric Project [WB’s IP], Tata Mega Ultra-01/Mundra and Anjar [IFC’s CAO & ADB’s CRP], India Infrastructure Fund-01/Dhenkanal District [IFC’s CAO], Allain Duhangan Hydro Power Limited-01/Himachal Pradesh [IFC’s CAO] and Mumbai Urban Transport Project (2009) [WB’s IP].
As we now know, what is being witnessed recently is an influx of approved and proposed investments majorly in energy, transport, steel, roads, urban projects, bullet trains, industrial zones/corridors, smart cities, water privatization and other mega projects in India. This has been financed from different multilateral and bilateral sources, foreign corporations, private banks as well as Export-Import Banks (ExIm Banks). It has become a brutal challenge for communities, social movements and CSOs, with lenders and governments constantly shutting their eyes and ears to us who demand accountability for their actions. A compelling and timely need has arisen among diverse groups amongst us to gather together and critically analyze the various trajectories of our engagements with accountability mechanisms of MDBs in order to bring together past 25 years’ learning, insights and reflections of various actors of this accountability process. This urging demand is also an attempt to define the collective experiences in India among our social movements, projected-affected communities and CSOs with IAMs and lending banks, especially appropriating the global political opportunity of Inspection Panel celebrating its 25 years this year.
Speakers:
Thomas Franco, Former General Secretary, AlI India Bank Officers’ Confederation
Arun Kumar, Eminent scholar, Former Professor Jawaharlal Nehru University
C.P. Chandrashekar, Economist, Professor Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Sucheta Dalal, Managing Editor, Moneylife
Soumya Dutta, National Convener, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha
Dunu Roy, Hazards Center, New Delhi
Medha Patkar, Senior Activist, Narmada Bachao Andolan
Tani Alex, Centre for Financial Accountability
M J Vijayan, Activist and Political commentator
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Anirudha Nagar, Accountability Counsel
Madhuresh Kumar, National Alliance of People’s Movements
A J Vijayan, Chairperson, Western Ghats and Coastal area Protection Forum
Meera Sanghamitra, National Aliance of People’s Movements
Vimal bhai, Matu Jan Sangathan, Uttarakhand
Daniel Adler, Senior Specialist, Compliance Advisor Ombudsman
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Birgit Kuba, Operations Officer, Inspection Panel
Anuradha Munshi, Centre for Financial Accountability
Bharat Patel, General Secretary, Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan,Gujarat
Awadhesh Kumar, Srijan Lokhit Samiti
Amulya Kumar Nayak, Odisha Chas Parivesh Surekhsa Parishad, Odisha
Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Legal Scholar
Manshi Asher, Himdhara Environment Research and Action Collective, Himachal Pradesh
Jacquelyn Pinat - FAO Accountability to Affected Populations specialist, explains the modalities of the distribution to affected farmers receiving rice seed in Burauen.
Read more about FAO and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.
©FAO/J.Belgrave
Pennsylvania school districts would save an estimated $395 million under Gov. Tom Wolf’s commonsense and fair bipartisan plan to hold charter schools accountable to students, parents and taxpayers. The governor announced the updated savings estimate during a press conference today at G.A.R. Memorial Junior & Senior High School, in Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County. May 19, 2021 – Wilkes-Barre, PA
Woot!! Despite the fact that I had friends over to spin on Saturday and they brought crazy amounts of yummy food the numbers went down! Yay!
I'm finding the "loose it" app on the iPhone very helpful. It really does sort of put things in perspective for me and keeps me honest. I know that it's really only a calorie estimate at best, but it's helping me ask the question "Do I really *need* to eat that?"
Governor Hogan Signs an Executive Order Regarding School Accountability Initiatives. by Joe Andrucyk at Governors Reception Room, 100 State Circle, Annapolis MD 21401
On 17 September, the EBRD’s Project Complaints Mechanism (PCM) team played host to around 40 colleagues from similar mechanisms at 15 other international financial organisations, as well as to NGOs and civil society representatives, at a one-day Open Symposium on the Practice of Independent Accountability Mechanisms
On 17 September, the EBRD’s Project Complaints Mechanism (PCM) team played host to around 40 colleagues from similar mechanisms at 15 other international financial organisations, as well as to NGOs and civil society representatives, at a one-day Open Symposium on the Practice of Independent Accountability Mechanisms
South Sudan needs to move ahead now and enforce Justice and accountability, the top United Nations Diplomat, Ambassador Samantha Power, said on Saturday September 3, 2016, shortly after meeting with the council of ministers in Juba.
“For as long as armed actors, rape, loot and kill with impunity, for as long as they are not held accountable, it will be very hard for the cause of peace to take hold here,” Ambassador Power told the council of Ministers in Juba.
Security Council delegates reiterated that the United Nations and member states remain committed to see an end to violence so that people can begin to recover from years of conflict and alleviate the suffering of the people.
Op 9 juni 2017 vond in de Tweede Kamer in Den Haag de tweede editie van Accountability Hack plaats, een hackathon waar met open data de prestaties van de overheid in kaart worden gebracht. Accountability Hack is een initiatief van de Algemene Rekenkamer en de Tweede Kamer samen met het CBS en de ministeries van Binnenlandse Zaken, Buitenlandse Zaken, Financiën en Infrastructuur en Milieu. De hackathon werd georganiseerd in samenwerking met Open State Foundation. Kijk voor meer informatie op accountabilityhack.nl/
The Inspection Panel is completing 25 years in its role, as an accountability mechanism of the World Bank. As you are aware, the Bank’s failure to comply with its operating policies was seen by the entire world in the Bank’s financing with the Sardar Sarovar Dam project on River Narmada. The tenacity of massive grass-roots uprisings from our communities in the 80’s and the sustained hard work of our social movements along with our resoluteness to link it with international coalitions to question the hegemony of the Bank, subsequently led the Bank, for the first time, to commission an independent review of its project. The Independent Review Committee (Morse Committee) constituted by the Bank in 1991 to review the social and environmental costs and benefits of the dam, after years of consistent struggle by Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement) and its allies led to a demand from the civil society around the globe for the creation of a grievance redressal system for project-affected communities, which ultimately pressurized the Bank to constitute the Inspection Panel in 1993. We expected this might be a crucial backstop and an opportunity for us to raise our issues of livelihoods, economic loss, displacement from our lands, alienation from natural resources, destruction of environment and threat to our biodiversity and cultural hotspots, where Bank invested in large, supposedly ‘development’ projects like mega dams, energy and other infrastructure projects. Yet, the outcome we expected rarely delivered sufficient remedy for the harm and losses people have experienced over the years.
A number of accountability mechanisms over the next couple of decades in several development finance institutions were formed following the model of World Bank, commonly known as ‘Independent Accountability Mechanisms’[IAMs]. Each year the number of complaints rise which is an indication of the increasing number of grievous projects happening around the world. While IAMs of most MDBs are advertised to provide strong and just processes, many of our experiences imply that the banks are accommodating practices which suit their own needs and their clients, which are borrowing countries and agencies, and not the people for whom the IAMs were built to serve.
Many a time, we have been disappointed by these mechanisms, since these are designed by the banks who are lending for disastrous projects in our lands. And as a result, the already existing narrow mandate of IAMs is further restricted.
In our efforts to hold the lending bank accountable, the communities are always presented with the arduous process of learning the complex formalities and detailed procedures to initially approach the IAMs and get our grievances registered. Our many years’ time and energy then is channelised into seeing through the various cycles of these complaint handling mechanisms, that our entire efforts go into this process, and often our complaint gets dropped off in midst of the procedural rules of the IAMs. People are made to wait many months to clear procedural levels and our cases with the IAMs get highly unpredictable. Further, we face intimidation and reprisals from the state and project agencies for having contacted the IAMs who themselves do not possess any authority to address the violations hurled out to us when we seek dignity, fair treatment and justice from them. There are many of us who feel a loss of morale after long years of struggling with lenders when we fail to see concrete benefits or changes in our circumstances, by which time considerable irreplaceable harm is already done to our lives, environment and livelihoods.
In this manner, our immediate and larger goal of holding banks for their failure to consult with and obtain consent from communities before devising action plans for our lands, water and forests is deflected in the pretext of problem-solving and grievance hearing offered to us in the name of IAMs.
With over 50 registered complaints sent to different IAMS from India in the past 25 years, many more left unregistered due to technical reasons and only a few got investigated, assessed and monitored at different levels, we have a baggage of mixed experiences with the IAMs. A few of the prominent cases from India apart from Narmada project are Vishnugad Pipalkoti Hydro Electric Project [WB’s IP], Tata Mega Ultra-01/Mundra and Anjar [IFC’s CAO & ADB’s CRP], India Infrastructure Fund-01/Dhenkanal District [IFC’s CAO], Allain Duhangan Hydro Power Limited-01/Himachal Pradesh [IFC’s CAO] and Mumbai Urban Transport Project (2009) [WB’s IP].
As we now know, what is being witnessed recently is an influx of approved and proposed investments majorly in energy, transport, steel, roads, urban projects, bullet trains, industrial zones/corridors, smart cities, water privatization and other mega projects in India. This has been financed from different multilateral and bilateral sources, foreign corporations, private banks as well as Export-Import Banks (ExIm Banks). It has become a brutal challenge for communities, social movements and CSOs, with lenders and governments constantly shutting their eyes and ears to us who demand accountability for their actions. A compelling and timely need has arisen among diverse groups amongst us to gather together and critically analyze the various trajectories of our engagements with accountability mechanisms of MDBs in order to bring together past 25 years’ learning, insights and reflections of various actors of this accountability process. This urging demand is also an attempt to define the collective experiences in India among our social movements, projected-affected communities and CSOs with IAMs and lending banks, especially appropriating the global political opportunity of Inspection Panel celebrating its 25 years this year.
Speakers:
Thomas Franco, Former General Secretary, AlI India Bank Officers’ Confederation
Arun Kumar, Eminent scholar, Former Professor Jawaharlal Nehru University
C.P. Chandrashekar, Economist, Professor Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Sucheta Dalal, Managing Editor, Moneylife
Soumya Dutta, National Convener, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha
Dunu Roy, Hazards Center, New Delhi
Medha Patkar, Senior Activist, Narmada Bachao Andolan
Tani Alex, Centre for Financial Accountability
M J Vijayan, Activist and Political commentator
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Anirudha Nagar, Accountability Counsel
Madhuresh Kumar, National Alliance of People’s Movements
A J Vijayan, Chairperson, Western Ghats and Coastal area Protection Forum
Meera Sanghamitra, National Aliance of People’s Movements
Vimal bhai, Matu Jan Sangathan, Uttarakhand
Daniel Adler, Senior Specialist, Compliance Advisor Ombudsman
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Birgit Kuba, Operations Officer, Inspection Panel
Anuradha Munshi, Centre for Financial Accountability
Bharat Patel, General Secretary, Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan,Gujarat
Awadhesh Kumar, Srijan Lokhit Samiti
Amulya Kumar Nayak, Odisha Chas Parivesh Surekhsa Parishad, Odisha
Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Legal Scholar
Manshi Asher, Himdhara Environment Research and Action Collective, Himachal Pradesh
Syrian human rights defenders spoke out at a Human Rights Council side event September 21 to appeal to the international community to work to end the conflict in Syria and to ensure justice and accountability for the victims.
The discussion reinfored the essential role of Syrian civil society in the pursuit of a political solution to the war. The
The event was organized by No Peace Without Justice and the Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum, and co-sponsored by the U.S. and other national delegations to the HRC.
Speakers included: Hussein Sabbagh, Secretary General Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum; Niccolò Figà-Talamanca, Secretary General No Peace Without Justice; Riyad Al-Najem, Hurras, Syrian child protection network; Husam Alkatlaby, The Violations Documentation Center in Syria; Ola Aljounde, Women Now for Development; Diab Serrih, The Day After, Ambassador Peter Matt (Liechtenstein); Ambassador Julian Braithwaite (UK) and Ambassaodr Maurizio Enrico Serra (Italy). Ambassador Keith Harper, U.S. Representative to the Human Rights Council delivered concluding remarks.
U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers
New York City Mayor Eric Adams holds a rally with union leaders for mayoral accountability on the steps of City Hall on Monday, May 9, 2022. Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
Governor Hogan Signs an Executive Order Regarding School Accountability Initiatives. by Joe Andrucyk at Governors Reception Room, 100 State Circle, Annapolis MD 21401
Syrian human rights defenders spoke out at a Human Rights Council side event September 21 to appeal to the international community to work to end the conflict in Syria and to ensure justice and accountability for the victims.
The discussion reinfored the essential role of Syrian civil society in the pursuit of a political solution to the war. The
The event was organized by No Peace Without Justice and the Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum, and co-sponsored by the U.S. and other national delegations to the HRC.
Speakers included: Hussein Sabbagh, Secretary General Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum; Niccolò Figà-Talamanca, Secretary General No Peace Without Justice; Riyad Al-Najem, Hurras, Syrian child protection network; Husam Alkatlaby, The Violations Documentation Center in Syria; Ola Aljounde, Women Now for Development; Diab Serrih, The Day After, Ambassador Peter Matt (Liechtenstein); Ambassador Julian Braithwaite (UK) and Ambassaodr Maurizio Enrico Serra (Italy). Ambassador Keith Harper, U.S. Representative to the Human Rights Council delivered concluding remarks.
U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers
Op 9 juni 2017 vond in de Tweede Kamer in Den Haag de tweede editie van Accountability Hack plaats, een hackathon waar met open data de prestaties van de overheid in kaart worden gebracht. Accountability Hack is een initiatief van de Algemene Rekenkamer en de Tweede Kamer samen met het CBS en de ministeries van Binnenlandse Zaken, Buitenlandse Zaken, Financiën en Infrastructuur en Milieu. De hackathon werd georganiseerd in samenwerking met Open State Foundation. Kijk voor meer informatie op accountabilityhack.nl/
“We are pleased that the NYPD is finally disciplining officers who have violated New Yorkers’ civil rights. But you shouldn’t have to be a public official to expect police officers guilty of mistreating you to be disciplined,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “What about the indignities perpetuated every day on the streets on New York City? This issue is bigger than these individual police officers -- every police officer should get a basic civil rights lesson.”
To get involved, visit the NYCLU at www.nyclu.org.
Down 1.5 lbs.
I can't freekin' believe I actually lost anything considering the weekend I had. The spin in could have been disastrous enough (everyone brings a dish to share and OMG do they bring good stuff) but then I went out with friends for brunch on Sunday and that was not good for the food intake either. I guess being fairly good the rest of the week counted for something.
I probably won't be able to post next week unless my hotel room has a scale. We'll see what 5 days on the road does to me.
It's been quite a while since I've done one of these! I've been sort of casually keeping track of my pregnancy weight gain, but decided on a whim today to weigh myself for accountablility wednesday.
On June 17, I weighed 136. I was counting my pre-pregnancy weight as 137, and had weighed 138 the previous week, so I'm guessing that was a fluke.
Today I weigh somewhere around 148, which puts my total weight gain at 11 pounds. I am 25 weeks pregnant. My first pregnancy, I had gained 19 pounds at 25 weeks. I am thrilled to be gaining more slowly, and definitely credit the fact that last time I was gaining weight when I got pregnant (from quitting smoking) and this time I was losing weight. It seems that my body likes to keep doing whatever it is doing.
(By the way, I am certain the actual numbers on the scale are wrong. However, I think the difference between them is correct or close enough.)
Accountability Windmill desktop print image: Jump-start each day with a 5"x7" framed desktop print in every work area. This easel-backed framed desktop print has a matching motivational poster.
Syrian human rights defenders spoke out at a Human Rights Council side event September 21 to appeal to the international community to work to end the conflict in Syria and to ensure justice and accountability for the victims.
The discussion reinfored the essential role of Syrian civil society in the pursuit of a political solution to the war. The
The event was organized by No Peace Without Justice and the Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum, and co-sponsored by the U.S. and other national delegations to the HRC.
Speakers included: Hussein Sabbagh, Secretary General Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum; Niccolò Figà-Talamanca, Secretary General No Peace Without Justice; Riyad Al-Najem, Hurras, Syrian child protection network; Husam Alkatlaby, The Violations Documentation Center in Syria; Ola Aljounde, Women Now for Development; Diab Serrih, The Day After, Ambassador Peter Matt (Liechtenstein); Ambassador Julian Braithwaite (UK) and Ambassaodr Maurizio Enrico Serra (Italy). Ambassador Keith Harper, U.S. Representative to the Human Rights Council delivered concluding remarks.
U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers
The Inspection Panel is completing 25 years in its role, as an accountability mechanism of the World Bank. As you are aware, the Bank’s failure to comply with its operating policies was seen by the entire world in the Bank’s financing with the Sardar Sarovar Dam project on River Narmada. The tenacity of massive grass-roots uprisings from our communities in the 80’s and the sustained hard work of our social movements along with our resoluteness to link it with international coalitions to question the hegemony of the Bank, subsequently led the Bank, for the first time, to commission an independent review of its project. The Independent Review Committee (Morse Committee) constituted by the Bank in 1991 to review the social and environmental costs and benefits of the dam, after years of consistent struggle by Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement) and its allies led to a demand from the civil society around the globe for the creation of a grievance redressal system for project-affected communities, which ultimately pressurized the Bank to constitute the Inspection Panel in 1993. We expected this might be a crucial backstop and an opportunity for us to raise our issues of livelihoods, economic loss, displacement from our lands, alienation from natural resources, destruction of environment and threat to our biodiversity and cultural hotspots, where Bank invested in large, supposedly ‘development’ projects like mega dams, energy and other infrastructure projects. Yet, the outcome we expected rarely delivered sufficient remedy for the harm and losses people have experienced over the years.
A number of accountability mechanisms over the next couple of decades in several development finance institutions were formed following the model of World Bank, commonly known as ‘Independent Accountability Mechanisms’[IAMs]. Each year the number of complaints rise which is an indication of the increasing number of grievous projects happening around the world. While IAMs of most MDBs are advertised to provide strong and just processes, many of our experiences imply that the banks are accommodating practices which suit their own needs and their clients, which are borrowing countries and agencies, and not the people for whom the IAMs were built to serve.
Many a time, we have been disappointed by these mechanisms, since these are designed by the banks who are lending for disastrous projects in our lands. And as a result, the already existing narrow mandate of IAMs is further restricted.
In our efforts to hold the lending bank accountable, the communities are always presented with the arduous process of learning the complex formalities and detailed procedures to initially approach the IAMs and get our grievances registered. Our many years’ time and energy then is channelised into seeing through the various cycles of these complaint handling mechanisms, that our entire efforts go into this process, and often our complaint gets dropped off in midst of the procedural rules of the IAMs. People are made to wait many months to clear procedural levels and our cases with the IAMs get highly unpredictable. Further, we face intimidation and reprisals from the state and project agencies for having contacted the IAMs who themselves do not possess any authority to address the violations hurled out to us when we seek dignity, fair treatment and justice from them. There are many of us who feel a loss of morale after long years of struggling with lenders when we fail to see concrete benefits or changes in our circumstances, by which time considerable irreplaceable harm is already done to our lives, environment and livelihoods.
In this manner, our immediate and larger goal of holding banks for their failure to consult with and obtain consent from communities before devising action plans for our lands, water and forests is deflected in the pretext of problem-solving and grievance hearing offered to us in the name of IAMs.
With over 50 registered complaints sent to different IAMS from India in the past 25 years, many more left unregistered due to technical reasons and only a few got investigated, assessed and monitored at different levels, we have a baggage of mixed experiences with the IAMs. A few of the prominent cases from India apart from Narmada project are Vishnugad Pipalkoti Hydro Electric Project [WB’s IP], Tata Mega Ultra-01/Mundra and Anjar [IFC’s CAO & ADB’s CRP], India Infrastructure Fund-01/Dhenkanal District [IFC’s CAO], Allain Duhangan Hydro Power Limited-01/Himachal Pradesh [IFC’s CAO] and Mumbai Urban Transport Project (2009) [WB’s IP].
As we now know, what is being witnessed recently is an influx of approved and proposed investments majorly in energy, transport, steel, roads, urban projects, bullet trains, industrial zones/corridors, smart cities, water privatization and other mega projects in India. This has been financed from different multilateral and bilateral sources, foreign corporations, private banks as well as Export-Import Banks (ExIm Banks). It has become a brutal challenge for communities, social movements and CSOs, with lenders and governments constantly shutting their eyes and ears to us who demand accountability for their actions. A compelling and timely need has arisen among diverse groups amongst us to gather together and critically analyze the various trajectories of our engagements with accountability mechanisms of MDBs in order to bring together past 25 years’ learning, insights and reflections of various actors of this accountability process. This urging demand is also an attempt to define the collective experiences in India among our social movements, projected-affected communities and CSOs with IAMs and lending banks, especially appropriating the global political opportunity of Inspection Panel celebrating its 25 years this year.
Speakers:
Thomas Franco, Former General Secretary, AlI India Bank Officers’ Confederation
Arun Kumar, Eminent scholar, Former Professor Jawaharlal Nehru University
C.P. Chandrashekar, Economist, Professor Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Sucheta Dalal, Managing Editor, Moneylife
Soumya Dutta, National Convener, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha
Dunu Roy, Hazards Center, New Delhi
Medha Patkar, Senior Activist, Narmada Bachao Andolan
Tani Alex, Centre for Financial Accountability
M J Vijayan, Activist and Political commentator
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Anirudha Nagar, Accountability Counsel
Madhuresh Kumar, National Alliance of People’s Movements
A J Vijayan, Chairperson, Western Ghats and Coastal area Protection Forum
Meera Sanghamitra, National Aliance of People’s Movements
Vimal bhai, Matu Jan Sangathan, Uttarakhand
Daniel Adler, Senior Specialist, Compliance Advisor Ombudsman
Joe Athialy, Centre for Financial Accountability
Birgit Kuba, Operations Officer, Inspection Panel
Anuradha Munshi, Centre for Financial Accountability
Bharat Patel, General Secretary, Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan,Gujarat
Awadhesh Kumar, Srijan Lokhit Samiti
Amulya Kumar Nayak, Odisha Chas Parivesh Surekhsa Parishad, Odisha
Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Legal Scholar
Manshi Asher, Himdhara Environment Research and Action Collective, Himachal Pradesh
Edi Rama, Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania and President of the Security Council for the month of June, chairs the Security Council meeting on strengthening accountability and justice for serious violations of international law, under maintenance of international peace and security.
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
2 June 2022
New York, United States of America
Photo # UN7938105