The number of accountability mechanisms at multilateral banks and financial institutions have doubled over the last decade. Many of them give direct access to people affected by bank funded projects to complain about harm resulting from safeguard policy violations by the bank. These safeguard policies often address issues concerning involuntary resettlement, indigenous people and the environment. One of the oldest mechanisms is that of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It consists of a Special Project Facilitator (SPF) mandated to solve problems at an early stage; and a Compliance Review Panel (CRP) mandated to review project decisions and recommend remedial action to the Bank’s Board of Directors. Lalanath de Silva, one of the three members of the CRP, will review recent cases handled by the CRP and assess the effectiveness of the mechanism from the point of view of the Bank’s accountability to affected people. He will also draw parallels with similar mechanism in other institutions.
Start Date: 10th Mar 2015 1:30pm
Lalanath de Silva holds a PhD from the University of Sydney Law School, Australia, a Master of Laws degree from the University of Washington Law School, Seattle, USA and is an Attorney-at-Law of the Sri Lankan Supreme Court. He is currently the Director of the Environmental Democracy Practice of the World Resources Institute in Washington DC and is a part-time member of the Asian Development Bank’s Compliance Review Panel.
To find out more about this event, please click the link below. http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/other_areas_of_interest/events/all_events/effectiveness_of_the_asian_development_banks_accountability_mechanism_addressing_the_concerns_of_project_affected_people