Charting the path of every single complaint

What is the most likely outcome for a complaint process?

What can communities and individuals harmed by Bank projects expect to happen when they approach an independent accountability mechanism (IAM)?  As an organization that advises communities on how to use these mechanisms, we are interested in understanding the likely outcomes communities can expect from their engagement with these mechanisms.  As part of a broader research effort at Accountability Counsel to understand outcomes from these IAM processes, we’ve mapped out the path that every single complaint has taken, from complaint filing down to whether agreements or compliance recommendations were fully implemented.  The results are mixed.

In most cases, the most likely outcome for a complaint process is nothing.  However, if the complaint reaches a substantive phase of the complaint process, i.e., compliance review or dispute resolution, then there is a very high likelihood that an investigation will lead to a finding of non-compliance or that a mediation will lead to a negotiated agreement.

Today we share an updated high level overview of the outcomes that can be expected from IAM processes.  Our dataset contains 1,803 complaints across 18 IAMs dating from 1994 to 2023.  Here, we focus on a subset of these complaints, those 1,644 complaints that exclude active complaints where we don’t yet know the outcome.  

Of these remaining 1,644 complaints, by far the most likely outcome is that the case is closed without any outputs, meaning no agreement was reached in mediation nor was a compliance report produced following an investigation.  A closer look at the data reveals that 42.6% (700) of complaints are closed almost immediately after filing.  Another 20%  (329) of complaints are closed after the complaint is registered.  And finally another 7.6% (125) of complaints are closed after they are assessed for eligibility.  These are all preliminary stages where the IAM makes threshold determinations, and eligibility is the stage of the IAM process where the IAM determines whether a complaint meets all of its criteria to advance to a substantive phase of the complaint process.  Not all IAMs have all these stages and specific eligibility criteria vary by IAM.

All these early case closures means that only 30% of complaints filed are making it to one of the substantive stages of compliance review or dispute resolution.

Reasons for early complaint closures

We have previously explored reasons provided for early case closures, though we note that for many of these cases, particularly those filed before 2020, no reason was publicly provided as to why the complaint was closed.  For cases with available case closure information, the top reasons provided include: 

• the case was outside of the mechanism’s mandate, 
• the complaint was forwarded to another department within the Bank, 
• the mechanism deemed its involvement unnecessary, 
• the “good faith” requirement was not met (i.e., complainants did not exhaust other alternatives before filing a complaint), and 
• funding or consideration for the project ended. 

Many of the reasons provided for closure may indicate a bias towards closing cases too early, hindering accountability for communities harmed by Bank-funded projects.  For example, too often we have heard of communities having their cases prematurely closed as a result of the Bank or its clients cutting off financial ties, an often required component for the mechanism to continue offering its services to harmed communities. In a recent blog, we explore the devastating consequences this type of irresponsible exit had on victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of the IFC-funded Bridge International Academies, a chain of for-profit private schools in Kenya.

What awaits at the finish line for a complaint?

For cases that reach substantive complaint stages, either compliance review or dispute resolution, the data looks more promising.  

Of the 282 cases that made it to the compliance review phase, 188 cases (or 66.7%) had findings of non-compliance, indicating instances where the Bank did not comply with its own social and environmental safeguard policies, which are meant to prevent harm.  Another 61 cases (21.6%) made a finding of full compliance, and 33 cases (11.7%) did not have sufficient public information to make a determination one way or the other. Findings of non-compliance can be a vindication for communities who presented complaints that persisted through the long and arduous process to make it to the end.  But of course, while a finding of non-compliance is in some ways an end, it is also in some ways the beginning of a new journey for remedy. 

Of the 188 cases that had findings of non-compliance, we only have data showing that 11 cases (5.9%) monitored recommendations from the compliance report to ensure full implementation of recommendations.  Unfortunately, there are significant gaps in the data in terms of whether recommendations made as a result of a non-compliance finding are actually monitored to ensure they are accomplished.

The picture for dispute resolution looks similar. Of the 175 cases that made it to the dispute resolution process, 121 (69.1%) resulted in an agreement between the Parties. Of these 121 cases, we only have data showing that 20 dases (16.5%) were monitored until all commitments were fully accomplished. 

Final thoughts

It’s significant that two-thirds of complaints that complete a compliance review produce findings of non-compliance. This points to the importance of this process in bringing to light when things go wrong on projects, and that complaints getting this far usually have merit to them.  It’s similarly significant that so many cases going through dispute resolution result in an agreement between the parties to resolve the issues raised in the complaint.  

Conversely, it’s appalling that so many complaints get turned away at earlier stages for not having exhausted other options (not meeting a “good faith requirement”) or for a Bank’s irresponsible early exit (“funding or consideration ended”).  Accountability Counsel’s Good Policy Paper highlights the importance of keeping  admissibility requirements simple (recommendation #29), including not requiring complainants to take other steps to resolve their grievances as a precondition to filing a complaint to the IAM (recommendation #32).  Accountability mechanisms should be striving to make their services as accessible as possible to ensure that harm from projects comes to light and is swiftly addressed.  Creating barriers to filing complaints only serves to limit accountability for harm.   

As we’ve highlighted previously with the case of the Amulsar community in Armenia whose water had been polluted by mining interests financed by EBRD and IFC, early exits allow Banks to evade accountability for harms caused by their investments. The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner has called on IAMs to develop policies for responsible exit that would require post-exit monitoring, technical support and action plans to prevent and mitigate potential negative impacts on the community and address any unremediated adverse impacts.    

For Accountability Counsel, these findings draw our attention to both the end and the beginning of these complaint processes.  There is work to be done to assess the beginning aspects of these processes, to remove barriers that all but the most sophisticated of complainants and their advisors can overcome. At the end of these processes, given how difficult it is to achieve implementation of an agreement or compliance recommendation, we want to ensure that it’s worthwhile for the communities that engage in this process. 

We believe it's worthwhile to pursue this research because if what the process offers in the end falls far short of the remedy that harmed communities deserve after persisting through a grueling process that may not make them whole in the end, the system needs to change or it needs to come undone.