Are Complaints Delivering Remedy?

Of 1,614 known IAMs complaints from 1994 to June 2022, 16% have been “closed with outputs,” meaning a complaint has reached agreement or produced a publicly disclosed compliance report. But how many of these outputs have delivered meaningful remedy to the communities who filed the complaint in the first place?

For over ten years, Accountability Counsel has tracked all complaints filed to IAMs, using the Accountability Console to collect, analyze, and share all the data we have gathered related to accountability in international finance. This data exposes patterns that are used by advocates, policy-makers, and IAMs themselves to promote best practice and encourage needed systemic improvements. For example, based on existing data we know that of 1,614 known IAM complaints from 1994 to June 2022, 264 (16.36%) have been “closed with outputs,” meaning a complaint has reached agreement through a dispute resolution process or produced a publicly disclosed compliance report through compliance review.

This information on "outputs" is valuable in understanding the bottlenecks communities face in navigating the complaint process, but it also obscures even deeper barriers to meaningful remedy. Though information had been collected on whether each complaint has produced “outputs”, until now there has been little to no information on the quality of these outputs: whether they have provided meaningful remedy for communities, and whether or not they've resulted in any substantive policy changes at their parent institutions.

For the past year, we have been working with the Yale Law School Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic to determine the types of outcomes and remedies that result from these processes and their relative prevalence. This information is the first comprehensive look at the efficacy of IAMs tied to international financial institutions, and the changes and improvements necessary to fulfill the Right to Remedy. We're extremely pleased to share this preliminary data with you today.

Reviewing and Classifying Commitments

Throughout 2022, Accountability Counsel staff and students at the Yale Human Rights Clinic reviewed every commitment (defined as a promise by a financial institution or client borrower to perform an action) recorded in complaint documentation, dispute resolution agreements, compliance reports, management action plans, monitoring reports, or closing reports.

In dispute resolution, commitments usually result from mediations between the complainant and the borrower, and can be identified in a published agreement. When agreements remain confidential, evidence of commitments can sometimes be identified through the IAM’s case website, monitoring reports, or closing reports. In compliance review, commitments usually result from management action plans (MAPs) published by bank management following a compliance review investigation with findings of non-compliance.

When multiple commitments result from the same action, they are grouped together as one commitment entry. For example, one commitment to update terms of employment contracts and a second commitment to ensure employment contracts are signed both result from one action to ensure employment contracts comply with national regulations and bank policy; these commitments are grouped as one entry. Through this process we have identified 1,225 commitments from the 264 "closed with outputs" complaints. The commitment categories are presented at the bottom of this article for your reference.

Accessing Commitment Data

All commitment information entered above has been added to the relevant complaint pages of the Accountability Console. To see commitment data related to a particular complaint, simply navigate to that complaint page to see a table of each commitment, its category, its implementation status (if known), and a link to the original complaint documentation where that commitment was identified. For example, the following table can be found on the complaint page for the Productive Infrastructure Program in Haiti:

At the moment, commitment data is only accessible on a per-complaint basis; full commitment exports or analytical dashboards will be released after we refine and quality-check our data to ensure the highest possible quality and accuracy. Please use existing commitment data accordingly; we've done our utmost to report the fullest possible picture with the available data but please report any corrections/updates to the Accountability Counsel Research team.

Once released, the full commitment dataset will allow users to compare complaint outcomes with project sectors, complaint issues, IAM policies, stages undertaken, and much more.

What's Next

More information and analysis on complaint outcomes will be released as our research progresses. We've recently finished a similar process of identifying "recommendations" produced by compliance reports, which can be compared to MAP commitments to identify gaps and barriers to remedy. We're also conducting a series of interviews with complainants to get their perspective on whether the remedies provided by the complaint process have adequately addressed the harm they reported. A short report with preliminary findings will be released in the coming months, and a longer, more comprehensive analysis is slated for publication at the end of 2023. We look forward to sharing it with you, and supporting you to conduct similar research.

Commitment Categories and Definitions

Category	Subcategory	Definition	Commitments
Compensation	Cash	Monetary compensation given to project-affected people for a damage or loss suffered	44
Compensation	Collective Compensation	Compensation intended for the entire community, can be cash or other forms of support. This is a broad category that can encompass different types of support.	13
Compensation	Land	Land or real property given to project-affected people for a damage or loss suffered	20
Compensation	Other	Other forms of material repayment to project-affected people for a damage or loss suffered	8
Consultation & disclosure	Consultation	Consultations with project-affected people about a project's design, risks and impacts, mitigation measures, resettlement measures, etc.	83
Consultation & disclosure	Information disclosure	Distribution of information to project-affected people, especially about the project's design, risks and impacts, mitigation measures, resettlement measures, etc.	65
Consultation & disclosure	Studies (not environmental)	Assessments to further investigate the social impact of operations	46
Cultural Heritage	Cultural Heritage	Measures to protect or restore cultural heritage or to honor lost cultural heritage	11
Environmental	Environmental protection	Measures to prevent or mitigate against future environmental harm	50
Environmental	Environmental remediation	Actions designed to return environmental spaces to their pre-project status (addressing pollution that has already occurred)	21
Environmental	Environmental studies	Studies to further investigate environmental impacts	43
Labor	Employment conditions	Changes to employment conditions at the project level: Workplace health and safety measures; fair and ethical working conditions (hours, elimination of child labor); fair pay; changes to collective bargaining, freedom of association	31
Livelihoods	Agriculture	Measures to support agricultural livelihoods such as grazing land, support for livestock, new agricultural equipment, maintenance of agricultural equipment, etc.	26
Livelihoods	Employment Opportunities	The receiving of an employment opportunity; this can include employment with the project or business operations or with a third-party organization	9
Livelihoods	Job Training	The receiving of job training or enrollment in job training programs	10
Livelihoods	Other	Other measures that support affected people to improve their livelihoods, including measures to increase income earned from their livelihoods and measures to establish new livelihoods	16
Monitoring	Monitoring project impacts	Measures to monitor project impacts, such as water monitoring or other environmental monitoring programs	70
Monitoring	Monitoring remedies	Measures to monitor the implementation and effectiveness of remedy measures (i.e. compensation / resettlement measures, livelihoods support measures, etc.).	55
Other	Other	Any outcome that does not fit into another category	41
Operations Management	Policy Change	A change in the language of a particular bank or IAM policy	39
Operations Management	Process Change	A change in guidance documents, project implementation strategy, or other sub-policy expectations to ensure greater compliance with bank policy	65
Operations Management	Guidance Notes/Manuals	Creation of or changes to existing guidance notes and manuals for bank and project staff aimed to clarify policy and implementation guidelines for future use	51
Operations Management	Employee Trainings	Initiate employee trainings to better handle the implementation of bank/project policies and increase employee knowledge of mitigation measures. Can include hiring a specialized employee to handle particular aspects of project implementation	19
Project Suspension	Temporary suspension	The suspension of project implementation or business operations for a temporary period (i.e. for the duration of an investigation, dialogue process, or monitoring process until an agreement or remedy has been reached)	7
Project Changes	Reduction	The reduction of project or business operations scope or activities in response to violations of rights or bank policy	23
Project Changes	Cancelation	The full cancelation of a project or business operations in response to violations of rights or bank policy	1
Project-Level Grievance Mechanism	Project-Level Grievance Mechanism	Establishment or improvement of a local grievance mechanism where project-affected people can raise concerns about the project	43
Resettlement	Resettlement	Commitment to establish a Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) or general resettlement commitment separate from individual land compensation as an action of resettlement	33
Rights Recognition	Rights Recognition	Acknowledgement of rights, to the community or individual members. This can include the recognition of land rights for areas traditionally used and maintained by the community	11
Satisfaction	Apology	An apology from project implementer or other project stakeholders to project-affected people for wrongdoing and/or harm caused	4
Social Support	Capacity Building	Measures to improve community capacity. This is typically skill-building through trainings, workshops, coaching, mentoring, etc. in areas of social support such as the establishment of community collectives, trainings and awareness campaigns, transferring implementation of an action item to the community with bank resource support, micro loans, other social support initiatives	44
Social Support	Community Development Funds	Development Funds established by borrower or IAM for community development; community often has a role in deciding which projects/ activities the funds will be used for	13
Social Support	Community Safety	Measures to increase community safety from project activities, such as emergency action plans that include community evacuations or process changes to avoid causing community harm	15
Social Support	Education	Increased access to education including repairs to/new building of educational facilities and enrollment of project-affected people in an educational program; differentiated from job training by receiving a general education or participating in an education program that does not accumulate in a singular, specific job skill	14
Social Support	Health	Increased access to general health care needs or direct attention from a specific health care professional	13
Social Support	Housing	Housing enhancements including building new homes, repairs to damaged homes, bathroom installations, and other upgrades to housing amenities and functions	8
Social Support	Infrastructure	Infrastructure enhancement, such as paved roadways or improved utility access; this can be provided by employees of the project/business operations or contracted to a third party	46
Social Support	Microfinance	Measures that facilitate access to microcredit/ microfinance opportunities for project-affected people	6
Social Support	Other	Other measures that support affected communities. Examples include the building of recreational spaces, donations, and food aid. Excludes livelihood and compensation related commitments	40
Social Support	Sanitation	Measures to increase sanitation related infrastructure and community environment. Includes construction/maintenance of drains and septic tank installation	12
Social Support	Water	Measures to improve or ensure access to water for project-affected people; differentiated from measures to address water pollution which would go under environmental protection	30
Unknown	Unknown	There is not enough information available to select a category for the commitment	25

Tags: Accessibilty , Console, Console Feature, Data, Remedy, Research