Last year was brutal for the cause of human rights that we hold dear, but together with our community and civil society partners around the world, we were still able to deliver some of the most meaningful impacts in our organization’s history.

These wins included:

• Helping displaced Cambodian communities secure a groundbreaking financial settlement from Asia’s largest sugar supplier.
• Supporting Guinean communities to negotiate crucial water access and protection agreements with one of the world’s largest bauxite mines, which has wreaked havoc on their rivers and streams. 
• Training dozens of advocates in Africa and Latin America on our Follow the Money research and advocacy methods. 
• Launching and gaining momentum behind our policy proposal for a new, rights-based approach to community participation in decision-making about mining and other large-scale investment projects that impact their land and lives.  

… and so much more.  

Read the full report online here. 

The post Against All Odds: Our 2025 Impact Report appeared first on Inclusive Development International.

This week, we transferred the final payments to more than 600 families who were forcibly dispossessed to make way for the company’s sugarcane plantations in Northwestern Cambodia in 2008 and 2009—allowing them to move on and focus on rebuilding lives that were upended by violence and displacement so many years ago. 

We are thrilled to share this news, along with a new short film documenting how the Oddar Meanchey families, with the support of our team and partner organizations, were able to secure a measure of justice after so many years.

A follow-the-money model for success

The film tells the story of how, after our follow-the-money research revealed that the Thai sugar giant Mitr Phol—supplier to global brands including Coca-Cola and Nestlé—was behind the land grabs, affected communities were able to leverage buyer advocacy, a series of complaints to international human rights and corporate accountability mechanisms, and a groundbreaking transboundary class action lawsuit to hold Mitr Phol accountable. 

This process was not easy and no community should have to wait more than 15 years for justice. But contrary to the adage, justice delayed is still justice in the eyes of these families, who fought long and hard for this outcome and are thrilled that it has finally come.

We are beyond proud of our team, partners and especially the community leaders and plaintiffs in this case for their tireless advocacy and perseverance.

This story is a testament to what is possible when communities affected by harmful investment projects have the support they need to follow the money and gain leverage to hold powerful corporations accountable. It is an example that our team, as well as other advocates and communities, can learn from for a long time to come.

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For many years, there was an urgent need to review the mechanism’s policy to improve access to accountability and remedy for communities harmed. In the past year, Both ENDS, IDI and SOMO have participated in the consultation process, together with other CSOs that have supported communities through complaints procedures, as well as experts on the topic of DFI accountability. We are very pleased to see a strengthened mechanism, that is a result of commitment by all actors involved. Nevertheless, there are still critical gaps that we believe need to be addressed.

The new policy introduces significant improvements that strengthen the ICM’s mandate and
operational capacity. We particularly welcome the:

• Structural improvements including creation of a structurally distinct, single mechanism with its own website and creation of the ICM’s advisory and outreach functions.
• Possibility to file complaints post-exit: the ICM is allowing complaints to be submitted up to 12 months after project exit. However, for a complaint to be admissible post-exit, it is required to show “compelling reasons” that the complaint could not be submitted prior to exit, which is still outside of best practice.
• Enhanced references to international standards including IFC Performance Standards, UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and OECD Guidelines. Although the language used in the policy still uses the Bank’s own environmental and social policies as point of reference, which leaves some room for confusion: if FMO, DEG or Proparco weaken their policies, it may cast confusion about whether or not the above mentioned standards apply.
• Explicit recognition of retaliation risks against marginalized populations including women, Indigenous Peoples, and human rights defenders, and measures to mitigate risks in contexts where these risks are present.
• Procedural improvements including shorter timelines, clear explanations about the procedures, a clear mandate to monitor Management Action Plans (MAPs), and a possibility to also monitor non-compliances beyond the MAP.
• Deferral process improvements including important changes made between the draft and final policy that give more agency to complainants, particularly language making it clear that the Independent Expert Panel will not defer complaints if complainants object and clarifying that deferral can be terminated at any time. This represents a positive step forward in respecting complainant agency throughout the process.
• Steps toward greater independence including a strengthened secretariat, more autonomy over budget, and independent communications channels.
  

Despite these advances, several fundamental gaps persist that limit the ICM’s ability to fulfill its mandate and ensure that the banks are accountable and communities have access to remedy: Financial Intermediaries Gap: While the policy acknowledges complaints against financial intermediaries (FIs) and provides much needed clarification for how the ICM will handle FI complaints, it also creates a significant remedy gap that is out of line with best practice, as well as the UN Guiding Principles. The policy denies access to Dispute Resolution for all FI complaints in which the DFI applied a Portfolio Approach, even if the sub-project that is the subject of a complaint falls within the scope of the DFI’s loan to the FI (e.g. inside the “use of funds” or the “ring fence.”).Moreover, the policy effectively limits the scope of Compliance Review in such cases and attempts to preemptively distance the DFIs from playing any role in contributing to remedy. This is a significant departure from how other independent accountability mechanisms (IAMs) and DFIs handle FI complaints, and it directly contradicts the well-established human rights principle that financial institutions that contribute to harm must contribute to remedy.

Given that the Banks’ preferred approach to FI lending is the Portfolio Approach, this policy will effectively block communities from accessing remedy for the majority of cases in which these DFIs finance harmful projects through intermediaries. Moreover, it creates complicated rules which may be difficult for many CSOs and complainants to understand. Additionally, increased transparency is a necessary condition to be able to be accountable for FIs. Although the Banks have committed to revising their disclosure policies on FIs, this has yet to materialize.

Early Complaint Timeline Gap: There remains confusion about when complaints can be filed
during the project lifecycle. The policy states complaints are not eligible when “there is not yet an active financial relationship.” This creates contradictory guidance, especially when combined with the definition of DFI-financed operation as “any activity or any asset of the Client that is or is going to be financed by DFI funds.” The lack of clarity on early complaint filing is problematic from both a complainant perspective and a prevention of harm perspective, as it limits opportunities to address issues before they cause harm or otherwise escalate.

Dispute Resolution Timeline: The strict 24-month cut-off for Dispute Resolution is inappropriate. Some productive and promising dispute resolution processes may require longer timeframes to reach meaningful resolution. Looking across IAMs, there are many examples of dispute resolution process that ultimately achieved successful results, but where such results took longer than 24 months. Forcing otherwise productive processes to close simply due to a policy timeline can be counterproductive and undermine the effectiveness of the mechanism.

Inadequate Retaliation Protections: The policy fails to establish robust measures to address
retaliation against human rights defenders. Critical missing elements include: the ICM’s authority to publicly recommend project suspension in cases of unresolved retaliation, and mandatory publication of disaggregated data on all documented retaliation cases including investigation findings and recommended actions.

Insufficient Capacity and Independence: While the policy acknowledges the need for greater capacity, the language remains vague and non-committal. We recommended an explicit commitment to sufficient ICM dedicated staffing (a minimum of 3 committed positions) and adequate budgetary resources to execute its mandate effectively and independently. 

Limited Mandate and Scope: The policy maintains restrictions on self-initiation by the ICM and excludes climate-related complaints, limiting the mechanism’s ability to address emerging environmental and climate justice concerns. 

Some of these gaps can be addressed immediately via improved practices of both the ICM and the Banks, without any changes to the new policy. The Banks can improve their transparency on FIs, but they must live up to that commitment, which has been outstanding for several years without result. It is also well within the power of the Banks to contribute to remedy in FI cases, in particular where a compliance review helps establish their contribution to harm. Additionally, in terms of zero tolerance for retaliation, the Banks and the ICM can take a step forward when the risk occurs by taking meaningful action. 

The revised ICM policy represents a significant advancement over its predecessor, demonstrating that stakeholder engagement and civil society input can yield meaningful improvements in institutional frameworks. We commend the adoption of numerous recommendations that emerged through the consultation process. The trajectory shown through this policy revision provides a foundation for further advancement, but the journey toward genuine accountability and effective remedy is far from complete. We remain committed to working collaboratively while holding the institutions accountable to the highest standards.

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The fourth edition of the Lead the Charge Auto Supply Chain Leaderboard finds that automaker commitments and supplier requirements for responsibly sourced minerals have grown substantially since 2023. Companies such as BYD, Geely, Hyundai and Kia have established new commitments and requirements, while others such as Renault, Volvo and BMW have expanded existing ones. Additionally, over 80% of the indicators on responsible mineral sourcing have now been met by at least one company.

Notably, the number of automakers with explicit commitments and supplier requirements to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights—whose traditional lands encompass approximately 50% of the world’s energy transition mineral resources—has also grown from just six out of 18 companies in 2023 to 12 in 2026.“By pushing for improvements across a variety of issues, electric vehicle makers are demonstrating that they have the ability to help transform mineral supply chains,” said Ellen Moore, the Mining Program Director at Earthworks. “As influential buyers, they can steer the mining industry towards practices that respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, workers, human rights, and the environment.”

“By pushing for improvements across a variety of issues, electric vehicle makers are demonstrating that they have the ability to help transform mineral supply chains,” said Ellen Moore, the Mining Program Director at Earthworks. “As influential buyers, they can steer the mining industry towards practices that respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, workers, human rights, and the environment.” 

The report also finds that some of the top performing companies are starting to go further to ensure the minerals in their EVs are mined responsibly, imposing more stringent requirements for specific minerals and undertaking on-the-ground due diligence to verify supplier compliance. For example: 

• Ford, Tesla and Renault have disclosed direct mineral sourcing agreements that include specific human rights and environmental requirements in contractual terms.
• Mercedes, Volkswagen and Tesla publish detailed raw material reports on their progress to prevent, mitigate and remedy human rights and environmental harms across a range of supply chains such as lithium, cobalt and nickel. In these reports, the companies disclose multiple examples of direct engagement with extractive companies and impacted rights holders to address specific harms — including with copper and cobalt suppliers in the DRC, lithium suppliers in Chile and Australia, and nickel suppliers in Indonesia.
• Mercedes, Ford and Volkswagen require suppliers of battery minerals to undergo audits by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), the most robust and comprehensive third party standard on responsible mining according to analysis from Lead the Charge and others. Ford has made IRMA verification a condition of its direct sourcing agreement for lithium from Australia.

“By rejecting weak systems that drive a race to the bottom like the Consolidated Mining Standard, automakers can demonstrate their commitment to human rights and the environment,” said Chelsea Hodgkins, senior ZEV policy advocate with Public Citizen’s Climate Program. “Automakers must join civil society and demand high road mining practices.”  

Taken together, this progress shows a clear trajectory of growing automaker demand for responsibly produced minerals, laying down a challenge for mining companies—which have long been associated with human rights and environmental abuses—to deliver or risk losing business.

Foundations mostly in place, but implementation gaps remain

The analysis shows automakers have made strong progress on due diligence fundamentals, with the average score across all automakers on overall human rights due diligence now up to 47%—up 16 percentage points since 2023. 

Ford and BMW lead in this area, both achieving 73%. However, Chinese companies BYD and Geely were among the biggest improvers in this area in 2026. BYD achieved a 20 percentage point increase in its overall due diligence score after establishing a new supplier code of conduct and supply chain grievance mechanism. Geely published standalone Human Rights and Sustainable Raw Material policies. 

Whilst the industry is moving in the right direction, these foundational practices are not yet translating into consistent, targeted action to address major sources of human rights risks and impacts in EV supply chains. Average scores drop sharply—to just 20%—across the three issue-specific human rights subsections evaluated by the Leaderboard, covering transition mineral sourcing, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and workers’ rights in the supply chain. 

“As Climate Rights International has documented in Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of nickel, the consequences of the rush for battery minerals can be disastrous for local communities and the climate, including land grabbing, severe air and water quality pollution, attacks on environmental human rights defenders, and the buildout of new captive coal plants to power the nickel industry,” said Krista Shennum, Senior Researcher with Climate Rights International. “But it doesn’t have to be this way. Electric vehicle companies have unique leverage to demand that the minerals used in their supply chains are mined and processed in an environmentally sustainable and rights-respecting way and could position themselves as global leaders in the fight against climate change if they step their due diligence.” 

Leaders are pulling ahead with more meaningful due diligence

The analysis shows a core group of industry leaders – Ford, Mercedes, Tesla, Volvo and Volkswagen – are pushing further ahead. While these companies have significant room for improvement, they have achieved a rate of progress that is double that of the remaining 13 companies since the first edition of the Leaderboard.

When it comes to human rights due diligence and responsible sourcing, what separates these better performers from the rest of the industry isn’t just having many of the right commitments and policies in place — it’s implementing more targeted due diligence processes at the mineral and issue-specific level, along with disclosing more granular and disaggregated reporting of progress and policy enforcement in specific contexts. 

These leaders are starting to conduct more sophisticated risk assessments, developing tailored strategies for different supply chains, and engaging directly with suppliers and rights holders to address specific harms.

“EV makers are in a position to raise the bar for the mining industry at a critical time, as demand for ‘transition’ minerals surges. We have been pleased to see  some companies beginning to engage more meaningfully and directly with upstream suppliers and with affected communities, but there is so much more they could be doing,” said David Pred, Executive Director of Inclusive Development International. “For example, automakers should routinely use site visits to engage with affected communities to understand their concerns, and they should be using their leverage to address harms and enable remedial actions where needed. EV makers also have an opportunity to prevent harm and secure genuinely responsible supply chains by supporting upstream mineral suppliers to negotiate and enter into fair and equitable land access agreements with communities before new projects start.”  

Companies acting now are building regulatory resilience

The emerging best practices in this year’s Leaderboard represent what more meaningful implementation of international human rights due diligence frameworks – such as the UN Guiding Principles and OECD Guidelines – looks like in practice. Because incoming regulations, from the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive to the EU Battery Regulation, are grounded in these same frameworks, automakers making genuine progress now will face lower compliance costs tomorrow.

“The EU’s green rules have turned sustainability from a nice-to-have to the price of entry,” said Franziska Gruning, Raw Materials Officer with T&E. “The Batteries Regulation requires carmakers to trace key battery materials and take action on related risks if they want to sell cars in Europe.”  

However, despite the progress being made, the Leaderboard shows there is still a long way to go. Some companies, such as Toyota, GAC and SAIC, are still failing on the basics, whilst even industry leaders are still showing patchy performances, with no company reaching 50% of the total scores obtainable in the analysis. 

“At a time when critical mineral extraction continues to drive environmental damage and human rights abuses, the poor performance of some automakers is unacceptable. With an industry average score of just 25%, and some companies failing basic due diligence, the human and environmental costs remain severe,” said Eric Ngang, Program Director with Afrewatch International.

Box-ticking audits are not enough. Automakers must go beyond formulaic compliance and scale up targeted, supply chain-specific actions that create real impact. Policymakers, especially in major consumer markets, must enforce strong, mandatory regulations to ensure minimum standards across the industry. 

This year’s Leaderboard shows that meaningful progress is achievable and already demonstrated by leading companies. There is no justification for leaving producing countries and affected communities to shoulder the burden of the transition alone.

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Inclusive Development International (IDI) and the Data Science Institute at the University of Chicago (DSI) have launched expanded versions of our free-to-use Shareholder Tracker and Development Bank Investment Tracker (DeBIT) tools, providing users with up-to-date information on the investments of a vast universe of financial actors that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive or time consuming to track down.

Join us on Tuesday, March 10 at 10am EST for a practical demonstration of what the new tools can do. Register here.

New Shareholder Tracker covers thousands of additional global investors 

The new and improved Shareholder Tracker allows users to instantaneously search the shareholdings of 4,200 global investors, a more than 5,000 percent increase from the 80 included in the original version. While the initial version covered the world’s largest investment firms, scraping information from quarterly filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the new version covers every investor filing a 13F form to the SEC—that is, any investor with more than $100 million in assets under management that does business in the United States, including pension funds, socially responsible investors and impact-driven funds. The tool also directly scrapes the websites of 17 European pension funds that do not disclose to the SEC and have historically been responsive to engagement from human rights advocates. 

“Shareholders are important targets in corporate accountability advocacy because they have leverage over companies that harm people and the planet, and a responsibility to use that leverage. The Shareholder Tracker brings them out of the shadows so that advocates can identify and engage them to effect change,” said Dustin Roasa, IDI’s senior research director.

Data in the Shareholder Tracker is now automatically refreshed on a quarterly basis (as soon as new 13Fs are filed with the SEC), giving users real-time insight into the shareholders of an estimated 17,500 publicly traded companies around the world that may be harming people and the planet. Advocates can also use the tool to access a comprehensive and searchable list of the current equity holdings of specific investors, allowing them to, among other things, assess how well those investors are upholding commitments to divest from specific companies or sectors—for example, fossil fuels. The tool has also been updated to allow users to sort investors according to the market value of their shareholdings in specific companies—meaning they can easily identify those actors with the most potential leverage. Users can also filter results by investor type (i.e., pension funds vs. institutional investors) and download search results, making shareholder research and engagement quicker and easier. 

DeBIT tool provides easy access to real-time information on development bank investments 

The DeBIT tool allows users to search investments made by 16 development finance institutions that have independent complaint mechanisms that are accessible to affected communities. DeBIT has been updated to streamline the user experience and ensure it reliably represents the most up-to-date information available. For researchers investigating a specific harmful project or company, DeBIT can quickly establish which, if any, of the 16 development banks are directly exposed to it. This would otherwise require users to search 16 separate websites for every company or project of interest. The tool is especially useful for people trying to uncover development bank connections to harmful projects through complex, multilayered business relationships such as financial intermediary lending, which can be time-consuming and difficult when done manually. Campaigners focused on influencing the policies of one development finance institution can also easily use the tool to get an overall picture of what that institution is financing, with numerous possibilities for sorting and filtering by project status, sector, country or year. 

Democratizing access to financial information  

The Shareholder Tracker and DeBIT tool updates are part of Inclusive Development International’s ongoing work to develop a suite of tools that gives community environmental and human rights advocates and other public interest researchers access to important financial data that is currently only available through paid subscription services—such as Bloomberg Terminal and LSEG Workspace—that are prohibitively expensive for most civil society organizations and public interest researchers. 

As part of this work, Inclusive Development International, BankTrack and DSI will soon be launching a complementary tool allowing users to track commercial bank loans and bond underwriting. This Commercial Debt Tracker will help users quickly identify private-sector financial institutions that are exposed to a harmful project, expanding the universe of potential advocacy targets. 

By automating key steps in investment and supply chain research, these tools—combined with our Follow the Money research support, in-depth trainings and do-it-yourself resources—play a central role in our efforts to grow a wider community of advocates who are employing these proven  methods in their efforts to hold corporations and development institutions accountable for their harmful impacts on  human rights and the environment.

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Inclusive Development International condemns this decision, which denies the overwhelming scientific consensus about the human costs of climate change and the lived experience of communities in the United States and around the world who have already suffered its impacts in the form of deadly storms, flooding, wildfires and droughts.

“This is nothing short of ecocide by the Trump Administration,” said David Pred, Executive Director of Inclusive Development International. “As the world’s biggest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States bears the largest responsibility for halting the climate crisis, but this wanton deregulatory action hits the gas in reverse, with full knowledge of the severe and widespread damage that it will do to the planet and its ability to sustain current and future generations.”  

Inclusive Development International has been working with communities around the world to stop harmful fossil fuel projects for years. Our focus has been on preventing the local health and environmental impacts of fossil fuel extraction and use, as well as the long-term, global impacts of climate change, which fall disproportionately on communities and countries that have contributed the least to the problem. 

This misguided move by the E.P.A. will rightfully face immediate legal challenges, but its direct implications on U.S. policy, and the example it sets for governments and multilateral institutions around the world, will make it much harder to expedite the clean energy transition that is our only hope for maintaining a liveable planet. This only strengthens our resolve to continue fighting fossil fuel expansion and defending the right of all peoples to live in a safe and healthy environment now and into the future.

The post The Trump Administration is Endangering the Future of Life on Earth appeared first on Inclusive Development International.

Inclusive Development International led the drafting of a joint submission endorsed by more than 30 civil society organizations, which addresses flaws and gaps in the current version of Performance Standard 5: Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement (PS5).  

The submission critiques the IFC’s current approach, emphasizing that large-scale resettlement and livelihood restoration have proven extraordinarily difficult to carry out in a manner that upholds human rights and meets the IFC’s own Performance Standard objectives. The costs borne by affected people—including food insecurity, psychological trauma, increased morbidity and vulnerability, especially among women and children, the erosion of social fabrics, and, for Indigenous Peoples, the endangerment of cultural survival—are unacceptably high. It is fundamentally inconsistent with the World Bank Group’s mission and goal of sustainable development to impose these costs on vulnerable communities.  

The submission points out that the scale and persistence of these harms indicate structural deficiencies within the standards, underscoring the need for substantial reform. This reform is especially urgent in the current race for transition minerals, where mining projects frequently threaten the land rights and human rights of affected communities.  

The submission outlines our joint recommendations to reform PS 5, as well as related aspects of PS 1 (Assessment and Management of E&S Risks and Impacts), PS 7 (Indigenous Peoples and the Sustainability Policy). It draws from our recent policy proposal for a new, rights-based approach to community participation in decision-making about investment projects that impact their land and lives and our experience working with communities in our cases over the years. It also reflects important input from our partners, including international and regional environmental and Indigenous Peoples’ rights groups.  

Key recommendations include: 

• Prohibiting (not just “avoiding”) forced evictions, which are a gross violation of human rights.  
• Requiring that IFC conduct a human rights compliant assessment as part of its due diligence, to determine whether any land expropriation is justifiable, and expand the scope of PS5 to cover both public interest projects that justify expropriation and non-public interest projects that do not.  
• Requiring IFC clients to engage in a process of informed community engagement and participation that leads to Broad Community Support through equitable negotiations for any project that will have significant impacts on land and resources, including the terms on which the project can proceed.  
• Requiring clients to engineer the project—including its technical design and footprint—to avoid displacement to the maximum extent possible, including through “no-go zones” to be cut out of the project footprint to allow communities to co-exist with the project with minimal disruptions to their lives and livelihoods.  
• Requiring clients, through competent technical specialists, to engage with communities at the earliest project stages, prior to project decisions being made, to inform impact avoidance design. 
• Requiring clients to offer communities, through arm’s length resources, access to their own independent technical and legal advisors to ensure they have the necessary support to engage in the process.  
• Requiring clients to plan and finance progressive restoration, rehabilitation, project closure, and land-return measures—based on agreed timeframes negotiated with communities.  
• For high-risk projects IFC should explore financial arrangements—such as bonds, contingency funds or withholding of final disbursements on loans—that would create the financial and contractual leverage to help ensure rehabilitation, land return and responsible project closure.
• Requiring clients to deploy measures and resources demonstrably capable of achieving the objective of livelihood and living standard improvement. 
• Requiring clients to co-design or negotiate sustainable and effective benefit-sharing packages with communities to ensure they are left in a better position than before the project commenced.   
• Addressing legacy land issues by applying PS5 retroactively where: 
  • any physical or economic displacement, including land acquisition or land use restrictions, occurred prior to the project, but which was undertaken or initiated in anticipation of, or in preparation for, the project;
  • other events led to displacement, which was taken advantage of in order to advance the project; 
  • the IFC is supporting the expansion of an existing project, or a project that is an associated facility of an existing project owned by the same project developers (the IFC client), that caused physical or economic displacement at early phases. 
• Requiring clients to provide communities with the full entitlements and protections of PS 5 where project impacts are so severe that communities ask to be resettled.  
• Extending PS 5 to primary suppliers where land acquisition or land-use change causing displacement is induced by, or directly linked to, an IFC-supported project.     

Read the full submission here.    

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We are calling on the PPM and the AIIB’s leadership to interpret the new policy in a manner that ensures that communities are treated fairly and problems are resolved. We will be monitoring the institution closely to see whether 2026 will finally bring about a functional accountability channel for AIIB. A key metric will be whether any case is found eligible, and if so, whether affected communities receive a fair and just process. 

What has changed and what gaps remain?

• Time-bound good faith requirement: Communities raising complaints are still required to make efforts to resolve their issues with two levels of internal grievances – borrowers and AIIB management – before accessing the independent mechanism, a high barrier that does not exist at any other multilateral development bank. As an improvement, exceptions to this rule have been expanded and prior engagement with management is now time-bound to 45 days. This should help prevent a situation where communities spend months and years trying to resolve their concerns and are still denied access. However, there is not a similar time limit on the requirement for engagement with borrowers.  
• Independent verification by PPM: PPM now has the ability to independently verify implementation of actions taken by management to address non-compliance and resolve concerns, but this can only be triggered in exceptional cases and with Board approval. It is also unclear whether this will include site visits.  
• Learning lessons in co-financed cases: In co-financed projects where access to the PPM is barred, if a co-financer’s independent accountability mechanism (IAM) makes a finding of non-compliance, management will report to the Board on the implications for AIIB and the opportunities for institutional learning resulting from that IAM’s findings. While the reporting represents a minor improvement, AIIB will continue to take a completely hands-off approach in the majority of co-financed projects. 
• Possible review every five years: Every five years, the leadership of the PPM can assess the need for a policy review and initiate such a review. But there is no guarantee that the policy will be reviewed every five years. 
• Parallel proceedings no longer automatic bar: While parallel judicial or arbitral proceedings are no longer an automatic bar on eligibility for compliance review, the PPM can “consider their implications on processing of the submission.”

A longer list of changes can be found here.

Are the changes enough?

Since its inception in 2018, the PPM has not accepted a single complaint. There have now been 24 complaints to the PPM and 51 complaints on AIIB projects to other co-financiers, which shows that communities are raising concerns with AIIB’s financing, and yet are being denied access to a redressal process at the AIIB. While the Policy includes improvements aimed towards easing accessibility barriers or making the complaint process more effective, these are limited by conditionalities such as “exceptional cases” or in some complaint stages by requiring Board approval. 

One way to gauge the impact of the new Policy is whether cases will actually be found eligible, giving the AIIB the opportunity to address impacts that harm local communities and undermine the sustainability of investments. Another gauge will be if confirmed harm is actually fully remedied and livelihoods restored, especially in circumstances where AIIB is a co-financer. 

Reflections on the process

In December 2023, the PPM committed to conducting the review on principles of independence, transparency, and being consultative. As civil society organisations and community advocates who monitored and participated in the process for the past 2 years, we are well placed to reflect on whether that held true. While there were some important good practice measures taken by this review, there were some serious lapses: 

• The recommendations of the external reviewer were largely ignored. It isn’t enough to have an external review of the Policy, if resultant recommendations are not taken seriously. There has been no information on why AIIB was unable to accept those recommendations. 
• CSOs have not received reasons for why recommendations submitted during the review process have not been accepted. PPM should release a matrix of stakeholder comments they received, those that were accepted/rejected, and reasons for rejection. Without this, the review process will remain a black box. 
• Finally, CSOs’ ability to engage with the ultimate decision makers of the Policy, i.e., Board of Directors, remained uneven. We understand this is especially challenging for a non-resident board but we sincerely hope more Board offices will institute a practice of CSO engagement. 

Moving towards implementation

As next steps, we are calling on the PPM and AIIB leadership to interpret the policy in a flexible manner that takes into account the challenges and risks communities undertake in raising grievances and errors towards accepting and resolving complaints. The PPM and AIIB should ensure that communities at project sites are informed about the PPM both during stakeholder consultations and on project signage. Finally, the review process so far has been led by an Acting MD-CEIU. Moving forward, implementation requires full-time and continuous leadership, and we call upon AIIB to appoint a new MD-CEIU through a Board-led hiring process which also involves external stakeholders. 

The new PPM Policy coincides with the change of leadership at the top of the AIIB. The president, Zou Jiayi, has the opportunity to change direction and finally prove AIIB commitment to a fit for purpose PPM that is capable of ensuring remedy for project-affected people and the environment, and promoting institutional accountability for AIIB’s financing.

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A new report released today by the international human rights organization Inclusive Development International and the Guinean NGOs Action Mines-Guinea, CECIDE and ADREMGUI, “I Will Do Anything to Stay Here”: What a Just Energy Transition Means to Communities at Risk from Bauxite Mining in Guinea, presents perspectives from people at risk from the anticipated expansion of one of the world’s largest bauxite mines—a joint venture of Rio Tinto, Alcoa, Dadco and the Guinean government, which supplies raw materials for use in electric cars, solar panels and batteries.

“Guinea’s bauxite industry is on the cusp of what could be its most significant expansion since large-scale mining began in the 1960s,” said Dustin Roasa, research director at Inclusive Development International and the author of the report. “People living in the path of planned new mines desperately want to avoid the land grabs and environmental damage that have sadly been routine in the past. They have a lot to say, and it will benefit everyone if the mining companies and the Government of Guinea listens.”

“This land is ours. We inherited it from our fathers. We want to pass it on to our sons. We should decide what happens to this land,” said Kadiatou Bah, a grandmother of 15 featured in the report, who has lived in Horé Lari village in northwestern Guinea since the 1960s.

The new report outlines the concerns and expectations of the rural communities north of the Cogon River where Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG) is currently exploring to expand its mining operation.  In the report, these community members explain how they want the mining company and its shareholders, lenders and buyers to engage with them before any mining proceeds on their land and what they expect in return. The publishers of the report believe if the company meets these expectations, it will help them avoid harm, conflict and costs in the future and result in better outcomes for all parties.

“CBG’s past mining operations have caused unnecessary harm to local communities and the environment, and while some progress has been made in recent years, expansion of the mine into the rich agricultural areas north of Cogon could be devastating to the land-connected communities who live and farm there,” said Amadou Bah, executive director of Action Mines-Guinea. “But avoiding these harms is possible if these communities are meaningfully engaged as partners throughout all stages of project development. Mining companies operating in Guinea, including CBG and its shareholders, should not repeat the mistakes of the past and should use this as an opportunity to uphold the highest standards from the beginning.”

Community expectations

Key community requests include:

• Mining should proceed only once there has been a true dialogue and affected communities have provided consent to the terms on which the project can proceed.
• There should be a fully transparent census process and participatory impact assessment and CBG and the communities should reach agreement on plans to avoid or mitigate negative impacts and the benefits that communities will receive.
• Fair compensation should be provided, including for losses due to the exploration activities currently underway, before any land-taking occurs.
• Communities should have access to technical and legal advisers to support them in these processes.

The communities’ expectations outlined in the report were informed by the experiences of their neighbors to the south who have already been affected—in some cases, displaced entirely—by mining, and who have for many years been advocating for remedy and compensation for harms that have already taken place.  

“If this happens to us—if CBG destroys our land, streams and rivers like they have done on the other side of the river—we are as good as dead,” said Boubacar Bah, whose village Teliwora lies in the path of new mining. “We know that CBG is more powerful than us, but the people of Teliwora are strong and united. We are not afraid to stand up for our rights.”

Responsibilities of CBG’s business partners

The report was launched at an event held on the sidelines of the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights being held in Geneva this week, where panelists also pointed to the responsibilities of CBG’s lenders, including the International Finance Corporation, who they called on to tie any future financing to the condition that CBG secures a fair agreement with  affected communities and fulfills the expectations for a rights-respecting, deliberative negotiation process. They also called on multinational companies that use CBG bauxite in their products—including the car companies Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, GM, Ford, Toyota and Porsche—to support the agreement making process, including through the provision of pooled resources and use of leverage in their supply chains.

CBG’s opportunity to pilot a groundbreaking, rights-based approach to mining in Guinea

At the event, Inclusive Development International’s senior legal and policy director Natalie Bugalski also presented a recently released policy proposal, endorsed by more than 60 human rights, environmental justice and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations, that puts forward a framework for a rights-based approach to community participation in decision-making about investment projects that impact their land and lives—an approach they are calling on CBG to apply as they begin engaging with communities who could be affected by their mine expansion. 

“A truly just energy transition is not possible unless the people whose land and resources are affected by transition mineral mining have agency in decision making about whether and how that mining happens,” said Bugalski. “Even when the highest industry standards are upheld, that isn’t happening, which is why we are calling for a wholly new approach to engaging land-connected communities—one that is rooted in respect for their rights and their ability to weigh the risks, trade-offs and opportunities presented by mining and make their own development decisions.”

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