View allAll Photos Tagged Accountable

De Oekraïense minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Dmytro Kuleba (op het scherm), Europees Commissaris van Justitie Didier Reynders, de Nederlandse Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Wopke Hoekstra en Openbaar Aanklager van het Internationaal Strafhof Karim A.A. Khan.

 

===English===

 

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba (on the screen), European Commissioner of Justice Didier Reynders, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Wopke Hoekstra and Public Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim A.A. Khan.

  

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report:

www.gao.gov/products/GAO-23-105450

 

Thrifty Food Plan: Better Planning and Accountability Could Help Ensure Quality of Future Reevaluations

 

Note: While the process is presented in this graphic linearly, according to the Thrifty Food Plan, 2021 report, the approach to creating the Thrifty Food Plan Market Baskets was more iterative. After completing initial phases of analysis, initial modeling results led to updates to the model's inputs and constraints.

 

Accountable Care Organizations and Competition Policy

 

January 24, 2011, 12:00pm -1:30pm

 

To view a video of this event, click here: http://www.americanprogress.org//events/2011/01/aco.html

 

The Affordable Care Act provides an opportunity to create integrated, cost effective, high quality health care systems for Medicare recipients—and eventually all Americans—through the creation of Accountable Care Organizations, or ACOs. One of the most challenging questions facing ACOs is how to provide integration without sacrificing competition and the decreased cost and increased quality it produces. The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice have already been carefully scrutinizing these issues. Will some ACOs threaten competition and eventually raise costs for consumers? To what extent can ACOs overcome the barriers set up by current antitrust regulation? How should the lessons from health care reform educate the role of antitrust enforcement and regulation? How should we approach health care antitrust issues in an era of ACOs?

 

We were joined for a discussion of these and other questions related to implementing the Accountable Care Act in a way that enhances competition, provides better care, and lowers costs.

U.S. Army Soldiers from the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Squadron 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team takes accountability after an airborne jump during a training exercise at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, October 5, 2011. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Ashley Webster)

 

Upon founding the Light Foundation, Matt dreamed about starting a camp where young men could learn lifelong skills that would help them be R.E.A.L (Responsible, Ethical, Accountable, Leaders). For its 10th consecutive year, the Light Foundation’s premier program, Camp Vohokase has done just that.

 

Each year, Matt chooses four incoming high school freshmen from an at-risk community and asks them to commit the next four years to our leadership program, which includes 10 days at Chenoweth Trails each summer. There are always 18 boys in camp, four from each grade level, with each group coming from a different part of the country. Those locations, all with a connect to the Light Foundation, include Greenville, Ohio, where Matt grew up; Woonsocket, Rhode Island, close to where Matt holds his signature fundraising event; New Orleans, Louisiana, where a like-minded charity had asked for help; West Lafayette, Indiana, where Matt attended Purdue; Gloucester, Worcester and New Bedford, Massachusetts, all close to where Matt played during his NFL years; Hammond, Indiana, where Matt’s wife Susie grew up and identified a need for support; and new this year, Washington D.C, where the treasurer of the board resides.

 

The young men are required to keep good academic standing, complete a yearly community service project back home, and check in with our head counselors on a frequent basis. Program Director Edgar Flores tracks the kids’ progress year-round. He also does quarterly visits in order to foster the ongoing relationship between the campers, their class, and the foundation. By interacting with them in their own space, we can learn more about their behaviors and how those connect with their personal situations. By entering their homes, we often have the chance to stand as a united front with their parents or guardians in ensuring they’re doing exactly what they need to do to succeed. These visits are critical in reassuring to the young men that we are committed to them and serve as a true support system and not just a summer camp counselor. Not to mention, we have a lot of fun! They bond over some good grub and connect about what’s going on in their lives at that moment. Past day trips during a visit have included: Dave & Buster’s, paint balling, laser tag, amusement parks, farms, and bowling. We do try and balance the fun with more educational opportunities like volunteer community service projects, visiting local museums, or making a college visit for some of our juniors and seniors.

 

In return of having a good academic standing, the campers spend ten days among nature enjoying all that our beautiful facility has to offer whether it be skeet shooting, woodworking, canoeing, archery, fishing, dirt biking, etc. Despite all the fun we have here, the young men are responsible for daily chores, site visits to area businesses, and the completion of a service project around Darke County. Each night of the stay is reserved for fireside chats. These chats are structured to help create a dialogue about the very real and difficult issues these young boys face back home.

 

For a lot of these kids, all they need is an opportunity. We use the outdoors as a real teaching tool and a way to get kids to open up. And with us, these kids aren’t given anything. We make them work for everything they achieve. But through that they understand and value hard work, they learn work ethic, and they become proud of what they do, and want to share their accomplishments. Our hope is that after four years, each young man graduates from the program ready to become leaders in their own communities, equipped with the necessary tools and a heart for service.

 

In the past 11 years, 30 at-risk young men have graduated from Vohokase Cultural Leadership Camp with the tools to tap into their greatest potential as people and community leaders.

.. belongings at sarkhej roja.

 

see my fav STILL-LIFEs here.

Upon founding the Light Foundation, Matt dreamed about starting a camp where young men could learn lifelong skills that would help them be R.E.A.L (Responsible, Ethical, Accountable, Leaders). For its 10th consecutive year, the Light Foundation’s premier program, Camp Vohokase has done just that.

 

Each year, Matt chooses four incoming high school freshmen from an at-risk community and asks them to commit the next four years to our leadership program, which includes 10 days at Chenoweth Trails each summer. There are always 18 boys in camp, four from each grade level, with each group coming from a different part of the country. Those locations, all with a connect to the Light Foundation, include Greenville, Ohio, where Matt grew up; Woonsocket, Rhode Island, close to where Matt holds his signature fundraising event; New Orleans, Louisiana, where a like-minded charity had asked for help; West Lafayette, Indiana, where Matt attended Purdue; Gloucester, Worcester and New Bedford, Massachusetts, all close to where Matt played during his NFL years; Hammond, Indiana, where Matt’s wife Susie grew up and identified a need for support; and new this year, Washington D.C, where the treasurer of the board resides.

 

The young men are required to keep good academic standing, complete a yearly community service project back home, and check in with our head counselors on a frequent basis. Program Director Edgar Flores tracks the kids’ progress year-round. He also does quarterly visits in order to foster the ongoing relationship between the campers, their class, and the foundation. By interacting with them in their own space, we can learn more about their behaviors and how those connect with their personal situations. By entering their homes, we often have the chance to stand as a united front with their parents or guardians in ensuring they’re doing exactly what they need to do to succeed. These visits are critical in reassuring to the young men that we are committed to them and serve as a true support system and not just a summer camp counselor. Not to mention, we have a lot of fun! They bond over some good grub and connect about what’s going on in their lives at that moment. Past day trips during a visit have included: Dave & Buster’s, paint balling, laser tag, amusement parks, farms, and bowling. We do try and balance the fun with more educational opportunities like volunteer community service projects, visiting local museums, or making a college visit for some of our juniors and seniors.

 

In return of having a good academic standing, the campers spend ten days among nature enjoying all that our beautiful facility has to offer whether it be skeet shooting, woodworking, canoeing, archery, fishing, dirt biking, etc. Despite all the fun we have here, the young men are responsible for daily chores, site visits to area businesses, and the completion of a service project around Darke County. Each night of the stay is reserved for fireside chats. These chats are structured to help create a dialogue about the very real and difficult issues these young boys face back home.

 

For a lot of these kids, all they need is an opportunity. We use the outdoors as a real teaching tool and a way to get kids to open up. And with us, these kids aren’t given anything. We make them work for everything they achieve. But through that they understand and value hard work, they learn work ethic, and they become proud of what they do, and want to share their accomplishments. Our hope is that after four years, each young man graduates from the program ready to become leaders in their own communities, equipped with the necessary tools and a heart for service.

 

In the past 11 years, 30 at-risk young men have graduated from Vohokase Cultural Leadership Camp with the tools to tap into their greatest potential as people and community leaders.

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

"Ma in una risposta di trenta secondi: che cosa potrebbe imparare la politica italiana dagli eventi seguiti all'inaugurazione di Obama?"

 

"Utilizzare la piattaforma neutrale della tecnologia moderna, per massimizzare la accountability, quindi mettere in grado il popolo di esercitare il diritto di controllo disintermediato."

Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Wopke Hoekstra verzorgt de openingsspeech. De volledige tekst staat op www.government.nl/ministries/ministry-of-foreign-affairs/... of bekijk de video van de toespraak op youtu.be/BJPEOAvQQ7Q

 

===English===

 

Opening speech Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Wopke Hoekstra www.government.nl/ministries/ministry-of-foreign-affairs/... or watch the video of the speech on youtu.be/BJPEOAvQQ7Q

 

===

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

De Macedonische ambassadeur in Nederland Beti Jacheva schudt de hand van Openbaar Aanklager van het Internationaal Strafhof Karim A.A. Khan.

 

===English===

 

Macedonian Ambassador to the Netherlands Beti Jacheva shakes hands with Public Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim A.A. Khan.

 

===

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

Openbaar Aanklager van het Internationaal Strafhof Karim A.A. Khan

 

===English===

 

Public Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim A.A. Khan

 

===

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, 20220714

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

 

Photo: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022

 

Accountable Care Organizations and Competition Policy

 

January 24, 2011, 12:00pm -1:30pm

 

To view a video of this event, click here: http://www.americanprogress.org//events/2011/01/aco.html

 

The Affordable Care Act provides an opportunity to create integrated, cost effective, high quality health care systems for Medicare recipients—and eventually all Americans—through the creation of Accountable Care Organizations, or ACOs. One of the most challenging questions facing ACOs is how to provide integration without sacrificing competition and the decreased cost and increased quality it produces. The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice have already been carefully scrutinizing these issues. Will some ACOs threaten competition and eventually raise costs for consumers? To what extent can ACOs overcome the barriers set up by current antitrust regulation? How should the lessons from health care reform educate the role of antitrust enforcement and regulation? How should we approach health care antitrust issues in an era of ACOs?

 

We were joined for a discussion of these and other questions related to implementing the Accountable Care Act in a way that enhances competition, provides better care, and lowers costs.

Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Wopke Hoekstra schudt de hand van Tobias Lindner, de Duitse Minister van Staat bij het Federaal Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken.

 

===English===

 

Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra shakes hands with Tobias Lindner, the German Minister of State at the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 

===

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

Rajendra Pawar and Alec Erwin, considering the day's discussions. Can the PIAC's e-skills council make a difference and help thousands of South Africans learn the skills they'll need, not just to work in IT companies but to be informed and active citizens

who can both demand better services from their government and contribute their own efforts to the South African economy.

No movement. I suppose I'm not surprised, considering the chocolate involved the past week. Soldier on!

Accountability Colloquium (ACIII) participants group photo, taken at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy, 2 June 2015

The Government of the Netherlands, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission are hosting an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague, The Netherlands, on 14 July 2022.

© Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022

 

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

#RejectFear #StopC51

 

********TTC Closure Notice*************************************

The Yonge Line is closed Saturday from Bloor to Osgoode station. We recommend using the University Line and getting off at OSGOODE station. www.ttc.ca/Service_Advisories/Subway_closures/Line_1_Bloo...

 

See you tomorrow! Be colourful, be courteous, be courageous! ♥

*******************************************************************

 

There has been a call out to protest Bill C-51 on March 14, 2015 in cities across the country.

 

The proposed legislation Bill C-51 would clearly allow for the violation of Charter Rights, facilitate spying on innocent Canadians, and create a secret police force with little oversight or accountability.

 

This bill disproportionately targets indigenous communities, environmental activists, dissidents, and Muslims, many of whom are already subjected to questionable and overreaching powers by security officials. This bill will make it easier and ostensibly lawful for government to continue infringing upon the rights of peaceful people.

 

C-51 is reckless, irresponsible and ineffective.

 

We are calling on the government to withdraw the legislation.

 

We are calling on everyone to do what they can to bring attention to this governments attempt to compromise privacy for false security, while promoting a culture of fear and racism.

 

Please send a message to your MP, share this event, and join us on March 14!

 

Find YOUR MP using your postal code here: bit.ly/1GlPdaa

 

==============

TORONTO EVENT

==============

We will gather in Nathan Phillips Square at 12PM NOON for an OPENING CEREMONY led by an indigenous elder followed by a drum song.

 

Elder Pauline Shirt to do Opening Ceremony at Nathan Philips Square at 12:00 pm.

Speakers will begin at approx. 12:15PM:

 

Special Performance

by Juno Award winning artist Maryem Tollar

 

Vanessa Gray, Young indigenous activist of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation

Nasim Asgari, Young spoken word artist

Riaz Sayani-Mulji, and Suraia Sahar

Paul Copeland, Human Rights Lawyer

Peggy Nash, NDP MP

Andrew Cash, NDP MP

Elizabeth May, Green Party Leader

Hassan Yussuff, Canadian Labour Congress

Syd Ryan, Ontario Federation of Labour

Chris Hedges, American journalist, activist, author, Presbyterian minister and humanitarian.

Judy Rebick, Canadian journalist, political activist and feminist

Josephine Grey, Human Rights Activist and founder of LIFT (Low Income Families Together)

Mohammad Ali, Hip-hop & spoken word artist

  

..............and then join us for a MARCH to 277 Front Street; the CSIS Toronto office building. (Front & John)

 

More details to come.

 

Donations Gratefully Accepted

www.gofundme.com/StopC51?fb_action_ids=10152873899049064&...

  

To be involved in organizing the event message one of the admins or post saying so on the page.

 

We encourage every one to do what they can on this national day of action, rally, march, take direct action, spread information, write MP's, whatever it is you think will make a difference, do it.

 

This rally is endorsed by;

 

Leadnow.ca - À l'Action

OpenMedia.ca

Youth Vote Canada

Action for Civil Liberties - A4CL

Idle No More Toronto

COMER - Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform

Toronto 350.org

Millions Against Monsanto Toronto

Greater Toronto Workers' Assembly

PipeLeaks

Toronto Coalition to Stop the War

Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL)

International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAMAW)

Occupy Canada

Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice

Greater Toronto Area Council (PSAC)

LIFT (Low Income Families Together) www.lift.to

Centre for Social Justice

Network for the Elimination of Police Violence

Greenpeace Canada

Elementary Teachers of Toronto

Common Frontiers

Amnesty International Canada

The Zeitgeist Movement Toronto Chapter

The Council of Canadians

 

If you would like to endorse the action in Toronto let us know!

 

Go here for information on communicating securely: ssd.eff.org/en

 

FOLLOW UP EVENT:

Opposing this bill doesn't end with this event, come to our follow up townhall meeting to discuss this Bill and it's implications.

www.facebook.com/events/855612024506128/

 

======================================

 

National Event Page:

www.facebook.com/events/1576309639319839

 

OpenMedia.ca campaign:

openmedia.org/stopc51/

 

Leadnow.ca - À l'Action campaign:

we.leadnow.ca/stopc51/

 

Read The Bill:

www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Languag...

 

News releases on impact of Bill C-51 by the BCCLA:

bccla.org/?submit=Search&s=bill+c-51ehttp%3A%2F%2Fwww...

Better accountability, transparency and more detailed targets for climate action will be mandated under a new Climate Change Accountability Act.

 

Learn more: news.gov.bc.ca/20903

Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Wopke Hoekstra verzorgt de openingsspeech. De volledige tekst staat op www.government.nl/ministries/ministry-of-foreign-affairs/... of bekijk de video van de toespraak op youtu.be/BJPEOAvQQ7Q

 

===English===

 

Opening speech Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Wopke Hoekstra www.government.nl/ministries/ministry-of-foreign-affairs/... or watch the video of the speech on youtu.be/BJPEOAvQQ7Q

 

===

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

Police accountability advocates gathered in front of the Bronx DA office in solidarity with Copwatcher Jose LaSalle as he demands that Bronx DA Darcel Clark re-open an investigation on the officers who perjured themselves to falsified charges against Jose LaSalle followed by a march to the Psa7 precinct and demand that the officers involved are fired. The city and the NYPD agreed to pay LaSalle $860,000 on a settlement. (Photo by Erik McGregor)

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

De Italiaanse ambassadeur in Nederland Giorgio Novello wordt welkom geheten op de conferentie door Europees Commissaris van Justitie Didier Reynders, de Nederlandse Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Wopke Hoekstra en Openbaar Aanklager van het Internationaal Strafhof Karim A.A. Khan.

 

===English===

 

Italian Ambassador to the Netherlands Giorgio Novello is welcomed to the conference by European Commissioner of Justice Didier Reynders, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Wopke Hoekstra and Public Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim A.A. Khan.

 

===

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

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

Aankomst van de Bosnische vice-minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Josip Brkic

===English===

Bosnian Deputy Foreign Minister Josip Brkic arrives at the conference

 

===

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

 

Photo: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022

  

Police accountability advocates gathered in front of the Bronx DA office in solidarity with Copwatcher Jose LaSalle as he demands that Bronx DA Darcel Clark re-open an investigation on the officers who perjured themselves to falsified charges against Jose LaSalle followed by a march to the Psa7 precinct and demand that the officers involved are fired. The city and the NYPD agreed to pay LaSalle $860,000 on a settlement. (Photo by Erik McGregor)

Openbaar Aanklager van het Internationaal Strafhof Karim A.A. Khan, Europees Commissaris van Justitie Didier Reynders en de Nederlandse Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Wopke Hoekstra.

 

===English===

 

Public Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim A.A. Khan, European Commissioner of Justice Didier Reynders and Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Wopke Hoekstra.

  

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

Bianca Jagger speaks at 'Save Justice' Legal Aid cuts protest - London 04.06.2013

 

Around 500 barristers, solicitors, court interpreters and legal charity workers protested at the Ministry of Justice against proposed "austerity"cuts to the Legal Aid budget which will, say the campaigners, put justice out of reach for the poor and vulnerable. Putting justice out of reach for the poor and the vulnerable will also make it impossible for ordinary citizens to take the government to court and hold it accountable.

 

Many solicitors, barristers and campaigners spoke during the protest, including veteran human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger, Andy Slaughter (MP), Geoffrey Robertson QC, Mike Fordham QC, Dr. Adeline Trudy (Immigrants in Detention), Habib Rahman (chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants), Pat Craig (Legal director Reprive), Tracy Lazzard (Inclusion London), David Lammy (MP), Elena Pinter (Children's Society),James Welch (Legal director for Liberty) and David Creighton (Association of Prison Lawyers)

  

All photos © 2013 Pete Riches

Do not reproduce, alter, re-transmit or blog my images without my written permission. I remain at all times the copyright owner of this image.

 

Hi-Res, un-watermarked versions of these files are available on application solely at my discretion

If you want to use any image found in my Flickr Photostream, please Email me directly.

 

Media buyers and publications can access this story on Demotix

 

Standard industry rates apply.

 

about.me/peteriches

3 May 2019 - Panelists discussed the experiences of the past 3 years documented in the 2018 Learning Report on Implementation of the Accountability Mechanism Policy at the 52nd ADB Annual Meeting.

 

Visit the event page for more information on this event and the list of speakers.

#Accountability and #ownership when you #suck and passing on the #credit when you #rule

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

Aankomst van de Luxemburgse minister van Justititie Sam Tanson.

===English===

Luxembourg's Justice Minister Sam Tanson arrives at the conference.

 

===

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

 

Photo: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022

  

Police accountability advocates gathered in front of the Bronx DA office in solidarity with Copwatcher Jose LaSalle as he demands that Bronx DA Darcel Clark re-open an investigation on the officers who perjured themselves to falsified charges against Jose LaSalle followed by a march to the Psa7 precinct and demand that the officers involved are fired. The city and the NYPD agreed to pay LaSalle $860,000 on a settlement. (Photo by Erik McGregor)

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/

20230217, MSC, Munich Security Conference, Bayerischer Hof: Main Stage I: Panel Discussion.Against Lawlessness: Ensuring Accountability.Conference Hall: (from left to right) Nadia Murad.Founder and President, Nadia's Initiative; Goodwill Ambassador, Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, United Nations; Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2018; Lindsey Graham, United States senator from South Carolina; Karim Khan Prosecutor, International Criminal Court; Kaja Kallas.Prime Minister, Republic of Estonia, David Miliband (Moderator).President and Chief Executive Officer, International Rescue Committee; former Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom; Member of the Advisory Council, Munich Security Conference.

De Mexicaanse ambassadeur Jose Antonio Zabalgoitia in Nederland komt aan bij de conferentie.

===English===

Mexican ambassador Jose Antonio Zabalgoitia in the Netherlands arrives at the conference.

 

===

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

 

Photo: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022

  

Talkshow bij UAC gepresenteerd door Ikenna Azuike met als gasten Myroslava Krasnoborova, Bela Kubat, Chloe Marnay-Baszanger en Goedele Liekens.

 

===English===

 

Talkshow at UAC presented by Ikenna Azuike with Myroslava Krasnoborova, Bela Kubat, Chloe Marnay-Baszanger and Goedele Liekens as guests.

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, July 14th 2022

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

Chalk writing on the plaza outside the Hennepin County Government Center. The courthouse is currently holdin the Derek Chauvin murder trial. Chauvin is charged in the May 25th murder of George Floyd in South Minneapolis.

  

--

This image is part of a continuing series following the unrest and events in Minneapolis following the May 25th, 2020 murder of George Floyd.

 

Chad Davis Photography: Minneapolis Uprising

 

The Netherlands, The Hague, 20220714

 

The Government of the Netherlands is hosting, together with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the European Commission, an Ukraine Accountability Conference at ministerial level at the World Forum in The Hague on 14 July.

 

Photo: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022

 

The European Parliament on Wednesday adopted changes to the EU financial regulation, the staff rules and the 2010 budget needed for the European External Action Service to be launched. MEPs have managed to increase Parliament's overview of the service and to ensure that recruitment will respect geographical and gender balances.

 

The budgeting rules (the "financial regulation") of the European External Action Service (EEAS) were amended to ensure transparency and financial accountability. The amendments adopted include stringent provisions on traceability and budgetary and financial accountability.

 

Read more: www.europarl.europa.eu/news/public/focus_page/008-86242-2...

 

©European Parliament/Pietro Naj-Oleari

Witness Against Torture and Amnesty International USA marched from the US Capitol to the White House on April 30, 2009 to mark the end of the first 100 days of President Obama's term and demand accountability for torture and abuse. Photo by Shawn Duffy

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.

This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report:

www.gao.gov/products/GAO-23-105859

 

Impaired Driving: Information on Data Used to Identify Repeat Offenders

 

Note: Data depicted in the figure include all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

 

This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report: www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-505T

 

a) In some cases there may be more than one staffing company involved in placing the H-1B worker.

1 2 ••• 4 5 7 9 10 ••• 79 80