What is it about?
For the last 80 years, an emerging web of international banks and development organizations have sought to bring prosperity and an improved standard of living to people worldwide. But in too many cases the projects have caused accidental damage to communities. Since 1993, at least 25 organizations such as the World Bank have created publicly-accessible mechanisms for people to seek remedy for unintended harms. But too often no remedy is provided. Development professionals are pressing for answers to such failures.
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Why is it important?
We explore the extent of those failures as well as cases where remedy was provided for a community's complaint. It is important to draw lessons about the institutions and the development contexts that could shift the balance towards success. Evidence shows that a combination of policies and financial constraints discourage the managements of development banks and organizations from accepting responsibility for the damage from projects. By identifying and exploring the key hurdles, action may be more likely by governing bodies to bring the promise of remedy to fruition.
Perspectives
On the basis of serving on appeal mechanisms in four different banks/organizations over the last 30 years, I am gratified that there is now an awareness and desire to fix the problems laid out in this publication. The complexity of the issues and multi-faceted solutions have laid bare the range of stakeholders needed to bring real reform and relief to a wide range of banks, international organization, and regional entities. People are stepping up calls for change. This bodes well for major progress in coming years.
Richard Bissell
United Nations Development Programme
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This page is a summary of: Three Decades of Seeking Elusive Remedies, December 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004729735_015.
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