The Early Warning System Survey aims to minimize the existing knowledge gap by ensuring that communities have the information they need to understand proposed projects and their impacts early in the development process, to identify the banks and corporations involved in financing these projects, and to learn about advocacy strategies they can incorporate into their existing campaigns to protect their human rights and environment.
When communities are not involved in the design and implementation of a development project, the impacts can be devastating, including environmental degradation, the dispossession of lands, the disruption of livelihoods, and further marginalization of groups that disproportionately bear the negative impacts of a project.
Part of the problem is the lack of access to information. By the time a community or local civil society group learns about the potential negative impacts of a development project, it can be too late. Key policy decisions by governments and funding agreements with public and private sources have already been made. Project designs have been finalized, and project implementation may be underway.
Launched through a dynamic partnership between CIEL and the International Accountability Project (IAP), the Early Warning System (EWS) aims to minimize these existing knowledge gaps. The EWS is the first web-based tool to centralize information about development projects that have potential ramifications for human rights worldwide. It was created to ensure that communities, and the organizations that support them, have correct, accessible, locally relevant information about projects funded by multilateral development banks and clear, tactical strategies for advocating to modify or halt destructive projects. The EWS currently monitors projects by nine banks, including the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the International Financial Corporation, and the World Bank.
Take a few minutes and tell us about your work. How do you and your partners monitor development in your country? How can we work together to ensure that development is community-led and rights-respecting?
We are launching a survey to better understand how the EWS can support the advocacy work of communities, and the organizations that support them, globally. The deadline for completing the survey is September 11th. Results from the survey will be shared online in October 2015.
Share your work by participating in this quick 7-minute survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/EWS_EN
Link to survey in Spanish: https://es.surveymonkey.com/r/EWS_ES
Link to survey in French: https://fr.surveymonkey.com/r/EWS_FR
Originally posted on August 26, 2015.