Development finance activities can have profound impacts on the realization of human rights. Far too often, impacts can be decidedly negative — as in the case of forced evictions and reprisals against human rights defenders — and lead to further marginalization of vulnerable populations and Indigenous communities. Despite ongoing examples of their activities going awry, existing development finance institutions have failed to properly enforce environmental and social safeguards to prevent their investments from violating the rights of those whom they are meant to help.
CIEL works to ensure that all development finance institutions, such as the World Bank, have robust standards and systems in place to fulfill their responsibility to respect and protect human rights in all of their activities, while providing effective access to remedy when rights are violated. By promoting transparency, meaningful public participation, responsible exit, and access to effective remedy for communities, CIEL seeks to ensure accountability and promote a more just, sustainable, and community-centered paradigm of development.
