The International Accountability Project (IAP) is a public interest advocacy organization, established in 2003, that offers legal support to a global network of people who are seeking to hold international financial institutions (IFIs) and multinational corporations accountable for violations of environmental and human rights. We also work to defend the rights of communities around the world threatened with displacement by international development projects.

Our work builds on the stepping stones of accountability laid by decades of civil society campaigning to promote principles of justice, accountability, environmental sustainability, gender equity, development effectiveness, transparency, disclosure and participation at international financial institutions. Although we have made significant progress over the years, much of that progress is currently being threatened, as the World Bank attempts to revamp (and weaken) its environmental and social safeguard policies, and to undermine systems of accountability.

The IAP is taking the following steps toward promoting a more just, equitable and sustainable world:

• Effectively defending and advancing the rights of people who are fighting the environmental and social impacts of poorly planned development projects, especially those who are threatened with or who have been forcibly evicted from their lands to make way for development projects; and
• Changing international policy and legal frameworks and development paradigms to prevent unsustainable projects, including by empowering civil society and by stopping the externalization of costs onto local people and the environment. This includes improving systems of accountability, problem-solving capacity, and enforcement tools.
• Documenting, drawing lessons learned, sharing analysis, developing resource bases. This can be done through publications (and translations), skills sharing and teaching, strategy meetings, list serves, and through the provision of web resources.
• Building long-term working relationships based on solidarity, friendship and mutual respect among colleagues from the Global North and the Global South who are working to defend human rights and the environment, and building effective coalitions to demand justice for existing harm and to change the course of future development.

We are based in Berkeley, California, and we are a project of the EarthWays Foundation.

Web address: www.accountabilityproject.org

info@earthways.org