Accountability in Development Banks with Victoria Marquez-Mees
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Summary
In this episode of the No Nonsense Sustainability podcast, host Ili Kama Shisim welcomes Victoria Marquez-Mees, the first Chief Accountability Officer at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). They delve into the intricacies of accountability within development banks, exploring how these institutions ensure their projects promote sustainability and avoid harm.
The discussion covers the Independent Project Accountability Mechanism (IPAM) process, highlighting the skills required for accountability professionals and the difference between mediation and investigation. Victoria emphasizes the human side of accountability, noting that complaints often arise from communities that feel unheard and affected by development projects.
Key insights include the importance of transparency, the challenges of gathering evidence, and the need for development banks to balance project success with community well-being. Victoria shares her experiences and aspirations for improving accountability mechanisms, aiming for a future where institutional learning prevents recurring issues.
Highlights
Victoria Marquez-Mees discusses her role as Chief Accountability Officer at EBRD.
The IPAM process is explained, focusing on mediation and investigation.
Accountability is about promoting sustainability and avoiding harm in projects.
Complaints often come from communities feeling unheard and affected by projects.
The importance of transparency and evidence in accountability is emphasized.
Victoria shares her vision for improving accountability mechanisms in the future.
Key takeaways
1. Accountability in development banks involves self-imposed rules to ensure sustainable project outcomes.
2. The IPAM process includes mediation and investigation to address community complaints effectively.
3. Transparency and robust evidence are crucial in resolving accountability issues.
4. Understanding the human side of accountability helps address community concerns and improve project outcomes.
Timestamped breakdown
[0:08] — Introduction to the Episode: Host Ili Kama Shisim introduces the topic of accountability in development banks with guest Victoria Marquez-Mees.
[0:28] — Victoria's Background: Victoria Marquez-Mees shares her extensive experience in accountability and human rights.
[1:13] — What Makes Accountability Special: Victoria explains why accountability is central to her career and its impact on change and progress.
[2:18] — Defining Accountability in Development Banks: Victoria describes accountability as self-imposed rules ensuring sustainable development.
[4:05] — Community Complaints and Accountability: Discussion on why communities resort to accountability mechanisms when they feel unheard.
[11:33] — IPAM Complaint Process: Victoria outlines the steps taken when a complaint is received by IPAM.
[14:45] — Mediation vs. Investigation: The differences between mediation and investigation in the IPAM process are discussed.
[22:31] — Role of Evidence in Decision Making: Victoria talks about the importance of evidence in resolving accountability cases.
[28:33] — Skills Required for IPAM Teams: Victoria highlights the diverse skill set needed for effective accountability work.
[48:50] — Future of Accountability Mechanisms: Victoria shares her vision for the future of accountability mechanisms at EBRD.
Edited transcript
Welcome back to the No Nonsense Sustainability podcast. I'm your host Ili Kama Shisim and today we're talking about accountability again, but this time from the perspective of the development banks. My guest today is Victoria Marquez-Mees, the first ever chief accountability officer for the European Bank for Reconstruction Development. Victoria has over 30 years experience working with civil society, human rights, accountability mechanisms. She's worked for governments, non-governmental organizations, and she's currently serving on the board of the World Benchmarking Alliance and the International Association for Impact Assessment. Welcome to the show, Victoria. So nice to have you here.
Thank you, it's it's great to be here. Very happy to meet you.
So throughout your career, you've been working in different capacities. What makes accountability special for you? I think it comprises everything that I've done in my professional life because you have to look accountability from the side of a community but also from the side of private sector when you have a client and understand the challenges that they face from the side of financing from the development banks and see if they can fulfill their mandates but also avoid harm. So it's also because the shareholders are public sector officials at the end of it all. So if you think about my 30 years, it's all comprised into one. And the great thing about accountability is that you're in a sector where you really can impact change while at the same time promoting progress.
Yeah. So in this show I have Bob the buzzer who's buzzing when we use buzzwords or enter into the technical jargon of accountability. I challenge every guest at the beginning of the show to explain what the main buzzword or the main topic of the show is. In this case we will be talking about accountability from an IFI or a development bank perspective. So here's your 60 seconds. What does accountability mean in a development bank context?
Accountability in a development bank means that we decide ourselves to apply rules that ensure that we promote development that we promote sustainability in every project that we finance. We do that by establishing our own procedures and policies. And because those self-imposed policies and procedures do not have cannot go to a court to to say that you're not complying with them, then we open these offices to be sure that there's somewhere where affected communities can come and complain. If we're not following our business model that's pure and simple.
That was a very very nice description. very surprised I didn't have to buzz you.
Yeah, I tend to do that. But because I also believe that if you're talking to communities, if you're talking to me, we need to be clear about what we're doing and hiding behind words. Yes. Is the specialty sometimes of working in accountability. Yes. No, that is very true. you know, accountability especially from within organizations has received a lot of criticism from civil society organizations who are also doing accountability but they have a very different perspective and I know that by the time that complaint gets to you it's probably been through a lot. So what does it take for a community to go to an accountability mechanism of the bank?
I think you have hit the nail on the head precisely on that one. They have gone through a long journey of no response basically. And when they come to us thinking if you think let's state the community you can say Bosnia and come to a small office in London that's headed by a Mexican. Why would they do that if they're not desperate? if they have not tried everything and they have found no response or responses that lack content that that really mean anything for them in their everyday lives. And that's I think that's when you understand people do not complain because they want to complain. People do not complain because they're looking for money. People complain because they feel they're being affected by something and they want someone to to take care of that. And we as development banks say that we do take care about that. And that's why they come to us eventually trusting someone they've never met in their lives in a language that they've never used in their lives to really see if we can effect change as we say we do.
Yeah. you know, I've been on the other side as a as a specialist within these banks and I know that we're doing a lot of site visits, outreach, community engagement. We push our clients to have a complaints mechanism that they manage. And usually when something escalates, that's either the inability of the client to navigate or really an issue that cannot be solved within the project boundaries. Is this that is this your experience?
I think first of all I think we have to establish that the work that you used to do and I do now where coins of sides of the same coin you do it before and for to us it comes when everything has failed at certain points for for certain people not for everyone that that is also important. the project has been important, the work you've done is still look good, but there's something that we we missed. Most of the time it's things that we missed. And as you were explaining, sometimes the client has no capacity capacity. Is this more of a lack of skill or a lack of people resources?
I think it's a combination of both. Do we does for example a public sector project that has people working there do they know what what environment protection is do they know what impacts of the community mean or they just reading something and trying to make the best they can do have they been trained formally for that one thing on the other do you have enough people enough resources to do something We we as banks set conditions in our contracts and we ass and someone signs them on the other side for the money that they were going to get for the project. But sometimes they need that are committing to these things which really take a long time expert analysis a lot of resilience as well because these things are not easy to implement and suddenly find that the small print was really for real. It was a condition of your contract of getting the money and you never thought about it. And we all do it when we sign a contract. We get a card. Oh, now I have to pay. Yes. You have to do this or that.
Yeah. But I think what's special about the EBRD is that you're working both with public and private sector clients. And in the private sector, you know, money is time. They they plan, they budget, they resource. And usually what I found through my work in public sector projects they utilize existing resources and they just put st another stamp another job title on them and they think like okay well we have a community leaison officer for example who will manage this process. We have someone from communications and they will just take care of this and then it comes down to you know not the person not being in in place but them not having the skills and the knowledge to translate these commitments into actions.
I mean you're you're talking music to my ears because that's exactly the problem. know and and yes when you talk about private sector usually they can hire consultants get expert views the EV works very well most of the time with private sector because their clients have this capacity of doing these things and it's not that they have lots of resources we because I think there's misunderstanding that private sector has a lot of resources but they they they have the freedom to use those resources and deploy them as necessary. On the public sector, you have the limitations on on the law and what a public official can do, but also these multiple hats that you wear. Now, we we do a lot of um mediation in our processes and then you get a a public official representing the the client on that side and you see they're they're doing their job 9 to5 like we do. They're they have other things to do. They're accountable to the law. They're accountable to their governments and and we're expecting them to know how to do these things. I I have a case where the person who was in charge of expropriation, a lawyer, suddenly changed to be the community leas and we complained that he doesn't do a good job. Yeah. No, he has not been trained for that. He has no patience to talk to community. He doesn't understand what he's doing. So we we have to appreciate that there's people who are developed and trained and are amenable and have the personality for this and others that do not and that can mean the failure of a project in many ways. But that's where I think we as a bank have to identify what are those weaknesses.
Yeah.
Because that will make a difference if our project is successful or not. Do you have more public sector projects, private sector in your in your IPAM or is it more balanced? We have more public sector definitely more public sector. A lot to do with infrastructure. No, if you're and which are projects that have a lot of bad impacts to the community. You have roads, you have airports, you have water sanitation projects and particularly in in many of the regions that where we work is you have projects that are within cities. So it's even more complex because you have a lot of people living there and suddenly you see the road coming up and their businesses affected and things that but you have to do them. So how do you really ensure that you can do a project without harming everyone around them and that's that's the key of how how do you plan for that?
Yeah, exactly. So then let's let's walk through what happens when the IPM receives a complaint. When IPM gets a complaint, the the first thing that we do, we have we have a policy that establishes every decision that we make has a criteria of that has to be met. So when a complaint comes we see the complaint first is for us. Is it about environmental social issues? Does it allege harm of the community? Do we have a community or a person or an individual who is affected and do we know who they are? So we check on all these things and then it gets registered and it starts this journey through our case processing and the journey starts with us going to the ground. We go to assess. You cannot really look at a complaint in paper.
Yes,
you have to go there. You have to understand the project. You have to see if what they're saying is linked to our project as CBRD. It's linked to many other things. The context, the place where it's being built and and and really talk not only to complainers but talk to many people which sometimes it's different from when you were working for the banks. We don't only talk to the client, the complainer. We go around our office is the ground and and we walk through the road and we look at things and see if that could be true and listen to the community and and in many cases there already the community feels that the harm has gone down because it's the first time someone has come and talked to them which seems a very low threshold for everyone but that's what they're asking. Then they can decide if they want to do for us to do problem solving as we call it which is really facilitate a conversation with the client. What are the concerns that they have whether they're right or not? Do we do they have all the information they need to make a decision? Do they know what's going to happen to them? Can they be sure that the client and the bank have considered all the situation? and and we facilitate that and we seek to get an agreement on how things should be moving forward. I I call it a little bit it's like um um couples therapy. So I go in, they haven't talked for a long time, now they're talking to each other and and you have to get out because otherwise you become part of the problem. So once they agree on how they're going to engage, whether they trust each other and they have a toolkit to start having conversations because the project is not going away and the problems will keep on coming up just like in a marriage, right? So do I know how to address it? Am I going to trust you to talk to you and for you to talk to me? And and that starts making a change. So that's an agreement and we monitor those agreements. We check that they're complied with and then we go on the other side. It's quite different. I love to make it a comparison with US police TV series which I love and it's we're like the internal affairs of the bank.
Yes.
So here we come. We receive a complaint that is saying that our bank has not complied or is not following the procedures they said they were going to follow to make this a good project. So here we come and then we start asking everyone what have you done?
Yeah, I've been on the receiving end of this
which I know it's not a nice thing to be in or the the best seat but at the same time I think it's it's it's fabulous for a bank to be willing to to do a therapy in yourself. have did I did everything I could or was there reasons why I couldn't do it and that's also super important context what prevented me from knowing that this would happen and when I got to know what did I do and many times it your client is the one that is implementing the project it's not the bank but we're the ones telling them this is the best standard we're following so you have to follow our standard if you want our money and that's where difficult Conversations also happen though between the bank and the client. And when we come in and say we're investigating the bank, they didn't do what they were supposed to be doing according to someone. Oh, everyone gets very scared and they shouldn't because the purpose of this is not to find a guilty party. It's to correct a project and ensure that the project is success successful and at the end follows what is a principle of do no harm. A good project does not mean that we have to harm people because it's good for most people. It means that we do a project that benefits a lot of people and those that have been harmed get mitigating measures or we avoid how they're harmed so that at the end we're all better off not only once and on the other side not.
Yeah. So in the case of mediation, I know that's a very specific skill set like you need to be able to sit there with the people listen like be sort of in the in the background but facilitating discussions. How how does one learn the skill of mediation? And if it is really a skill, why are we not teaching that to the ENS teams so that we can prevent all of these IPM cases?
I I used to work before I would work for EV for the Interamerican Development Bank doing exactly the same thing that I do. Um and we actually started training uh the the environmental social specialist in in conflict resolution because it is a skill that you learn and there are mediators and there's trained mediators. Uh but for me what's more important is do you have someone who knows how to approach a conflict and and and look at different scenarios of solution and really offer offer your client your complainant a suite of potential solutions and try to find if they agree with any one of them because what you're trying to do is bring them middle ground. No one will win this uh sort of process. Uh what will be the winner eventually is the project because it will allow it to to go ahead. But it also brings in a basic thing that I think we're missing a lot in the world nowadays. The capacity to sit down and listen to someone else's perspective and try to understand why something that for you, for example, the client might not understand why that's an issue. Oh, that's resolved. That's not important. And and the and the complainer say, "Yeah, it's important for me." And just listening to someone and listening to someone's perspective, it's just what brings us to be human again. And and that's what's the beauty of it. How do we make them to get off their professional skills, their professional mandates and ambitions and really sit down as as what they are a community because the business is as much a community as the resident there. We're all going to live together. How do we get to talk to each other?
And where are the ENS teams in these discussions? Because you know it's one thing that the client might agree to certain actions to correct or address the issue but ultimately they will have to check with us because we verify if that meets the policy requirements and if it's in line with what we collectively plan for the project. One thing uh that at least we're doing in my accountability mechanism well it's not mine and I have the pleasure to lead it is we involve the ENS people actively they might not be sitting down uh in the dialogue but we do approach them because for for us it's very important that whatever solution we facilitate it's not only within local legislation, which is important. It's not only that everyone feels comfortable with it, but that it's aligned with what the project needs. So now we have, for example, we have a case in Albania about a railway and we have a community that's being uh losing access because they're going to electrify the railway and they're going to fence it. And before they would go across the rails without any problem to the other side of the community. now they won't be able to and but at the same time we that was missed as an impact uh and so they're looking for other alternatives of how they can access their houses and also some businesses that would lose a part of their businesses if they if a road is built is precisely where they want to build it the client wants to build it so we're looking at alternatives and the way we're doing it we're working with our ENS people and saying we need studies And so ENS is paying for the studies. We are facilitating the dialogue and we're working together to ensure that whatever solution comes is within our standards because otherwise then then we're not consistent with what we're doing. Right.
We're not an isolated body that we're just coming and doing these things. We're part of the bank. I work for the bank and I want bank projects to succeed, but I want them to be done as what we promise we do because I'm I'm very proud of the way the the bank does things. So when we miss it, we have to make sure that we go back to that level of pride that we can have in our transactions.
Yeah. So let's say we've been through the mediation, we've been through this investigation where you're looking at the the bank's processes and and compliance with the policies. But ultimately the decision making will come down to facts and evidence. Mhm.
And I've been in situation where it's he said, she said. You know, we see two perspectives that are very very different and there's no definitive evidence. What constitutes a good evidence for decision making in these complex cases? When we talk for example that and that's very much in in the in the mandate of the investigation that we conduct. First of all, you have a client and a complainant. Each one has a position and they claim different things on the same thing. But when we're doing an investigation, you have to find the facts. And finding the facts means you have to talk and interview more people. You have to understand the project very very very well to see you talk to the consultants that were part of that. You talk to to to the bank teams who who made the decisions, how the decisions were made. You talk to other parties. So part of our are setting the table for the investigation is understanding where are we going to collect our evidence? Do we need studies? Do we need someone let's say water is polluted as delegation?
Yeah.
Do we have to look at do we do water studies? Are there other water studies already that might prove that maybe the water was already polluted and we're now saying that it's the project is a project doing this study. So it takes that we have to get a a sufficient pool of evidence that is not biased, that is impartial, that comes from parties that have no actual interest in in being right or wrong. And that way we can decide whether something is based or not. Many times we have as well that they come without an allegation and they might be suffering the harm but we cannot establish the link with the project and we have to say that in our reports as well. We were not able to make a decision. We cannot say that the bank has complied or not complied but we don't have sufficient evidence and sometimes in this is this is very important because sometimes my colleagues in ENS and and in banking they feel they don't want to give us information because the more information they feel might make them feel be guilty and that's their own words not mine. I say if you don't give me information I do not know what's happened. So I am not able to decide in favor or not. So it will be left in a void. An investigation is not only to find if the bank has not complied. An investigation is to confirm that the bank has complied from my perspective. And that's its value. But we have to be able to provide robust evidence that is true.
Yeah.
We cannot just say oh because I say so. No, here's the evidence and here's what's happening. And that's where I think it's the key value of of our investigations. When we find that we have not complied is as valuable as when we find that it has complied because that comes with a backup of real evidence so you can trust it.
Yeah. I guess the the issues or the criticism I've heard from the other side is you interview people but their perception might be skewed. you interview other groups of people, they might have opinions that are politically motivated in certain circumstances. Like how do you as a a mechanism account for this bias when you're interviewing different stakeholders?
You you're asking something that I keep asking myself all the time. But basically, and I've been doing this for 15 years now. That's where the responsibility of accountability mechanism come and the and the team that works there. For me, my team has to make sure that they do not only understand the project well, they know very well how the bank does its business, but also for each country or location where is a project, we have to study. You have to go back to history. You have to go back to what's happening in politics. You have to know your your subjects. You have to know your complainers. You do and this is a very buzz word. No, your KYC. Know your customer. Know your complainant. I do research on my complaintants. I Google them. I want to know if they they have been complained about this. Where are they from? I ask questions. You you also cannot base your your your work only in opinions. And and I I'm very unhappy when someone comes with opinions. This is not an opinion. It's either factual and evidence or simply we cannot do it. For me in our process, there is no room for opinions. You can have different interpretations of how we apply the standards. We can have different interpretations of just like a lawyer has in their field of the law. But you cannot say that this is because what I think my thinking is not important and that's that's very difficult. That's where you have to take out your bias and even your professional experience. So when I came to this side of the world I knew Latin America well. I am a Mexican. I had no idea beyond history books of what has happening here. You have to study and you have to understand the politics. You have to understand the social issues and the real challenges of the countries where the bank operates. And I think that's part of the beauty. That's why I've stayed because the learning and the understanding and at the same time the commonalities with every other region of the world are magic to my ears.
Yeah. No, that's really true. And you've mentioned commissioning other studies and that these complaints can come from a variety of different sectors and and topics. What is the core skill set of an IPM team? How how are you able to interpret like water studies biodiversity studies the I you know resettlement livelihood restoration? Some things are more quantitative and more obvious but other things are more open to interpretation. I think this the skill set of of a team is built right now I'm sort of completing building a team of this new office that came 5 years ago and what you have to make sure when you build a team is that you have a diversity of skill sets but the key skill sets of anyone that works in my team is you have to be very good at seeing through people and understanding their motivations every one of them. So a bit of psychology is very helpful. Be very good at critical analysis and understanding just the issues of a complaint. What are the core things? What is relevant? You have to learn about how international financial institutions do their work and what's their mandate and what is it that they do. To really understand what is it that you can do, you have to be very good at reading because we read all the time and many things are not technical. Huh? Yeah. Many things are not technical. Then when you get into the technicalities of things, that's when you hire experts. And what you have to be good at is identifying good experts and being able to manage them well and be able to very precisely say, which is also an ENS skill. You're also not experts in everything, but you have to find the expert you can trust that knows that is a reputed expert that will do the work and also that will not be biased. Yes. And I think that's the that's the challenging part here because sometimes
you go on site, you interview the people and you feel their pain.
Mhm.
But that's not necessarily a fact.
Mhm. So can you maybe give give us some examples of these like borderline challenging facts where it could be interpreted either as evidence or could be that it does not meet the minimum criteria for it to be evidence. I think the evidence does not come so from one source only. Your evidence you can interview someone and they will give you their perspective, their reality and that has to be taken as valuable. It's their perspective. So when you took someone who's super emotional and is being impacted, you cannot dismiss that. But you have then to look somewhere else to see if that same view and perspective is shared. If there's anything factual of what they're saying, you have to countercheck it with what is really happening on the ground. Was and then asking tough questions. Was this already happening to you? Has this happened before? Because sometimes everyone comes with their baggage and just as much as we do, you know. So, maybe it's a repeat thing. Therefore, it feels more painful that you're now again being resettled. You have been resettled three times.
Was that considered? because that there's an emotional impact on that and therefore your harm seems greater than what would an environmental social report would have measured that because it's not the same if I'm resettled for the first time but this is the fifth time and you you're coming you're a war refugee or you're not liked in your community that sort of thing and so you have to understand it do we have to consider it in doing our work as specialists I think we have but it also has a measure of how much you consider it. But then what else is confirming you all this? I I I never go and and I think I'm very empathic. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I'm very empathic to complainants because I feel their grief. But that's not the basis under which I say this is completely absolutely true because there's also other perspectives and other things. Um so the first thing that I do in any investigation is what's the timeline of events?
Yeah. What's happening? What happened when was that possible? What is the information that they're being provided? Are they being provided full information? So maybe something is being misconstrued. We were just having a conversation before uh we I came to this uh interview and and we were talking about how people were misconstruing the information that was publicized about the project. Well, that happens because you interpret information from the way you do or maybe we haven't provided the information in such a clear terminology. We need a buzz word.
Yeah.
You need both everywhere.
Exactly. Anytime. Read the document. if everyone understands the same as you do. So that understanding I think is something that we're lacking and and but the evidence can be captured that way and then you disconrit and start unpacking things say do I have evidence for this? Yes or no?
But what what is evidence? You know if you have a report that trucks come in front of the house and they damaged property.
Do you have videos?
Most likely no. Let's say it's a rural area somewhere. Maybe they have the video after. Maybe they have the video of the trucks going. But how do you establish the the correlation? You go in then ask the client, do you have logs of your trucks? How do you control the traffic of your trucks? Do you have a GPS system? Yeah. Is has there been a change? Do you get for example geospatial photographs? Have we is there any evidence that the road has been constantly used so that is now in bad condition? Can you do I I like to test things for example even to my complaints record the next time you say that someone's passing through and recording now life is easier than 15 years ago. So you start getting a lot of evidence. It's just like you can look at things that have happened around. you can go into social media and see if people have been complaining. Do you have the local grievance mechanism with complaints about something relevant about that? So you start linking different dots of information and that's how we try to build our evidence. When we don't have any information then it comes as a blank. We cannot say one way or the other. So, but that doesn't mean and that this is very important for me when you cannot prove an allegation and for example in the case of retaliation.
Yeah, that's uh it's really
that's challenging.
That doesn't mean that you can say that it doesn't happen. You just have to say that you cannot build the evidence to say that it has happened the way it's being alleged. And that's how it's left. Um, and the fear of retaliation in many ways can be built from what's the context in a country, whether there's any evidence that the client has engaged in any way in certain practices that shouldn't have been. Has someone that the other party trust a lot told you information about this? I had cases where I have had workers that were presented to me by the client who said you can trust what they say who came to me and told me that this had been happening but that it couldn't come out with it and they were not willing to risk it. So you have your evidence. Now you have to also protect people and so you're you you have to be mindful of that. So at the end is it easy? No. In many ways, it's not an issue. There's things that are very easy. There's things that are in documents which are even I I had a case in Mexico in which the environmental social impact assessment report had all the evidence there. But because it's a 300page document, no one was reading it, but said the the client would say at that time say, "No, we're not planning to build more. Your report is saying that you're going to build more." Where page 250. Yeah.
And then the question was, are you reading it? Yeah, of course I'm reading it.
And that's what we do. That's why it takes sometimes so much time to do investigation. We actually read the documents.
No, I I would be curious. You know, I I also work in technology and this is especially one of my tools. Disclose AI will help people interact with the disclosure documents which is all the impact assessments and all the studies because the same way it's challenging for us as experts to read a thousand pages and understand and connect the dots. It's the same for the affected people and I know EBRD discloses in local languages too. But there are other banks and and lenders that don't require disclosure of these technical documents in local languages. So like that facilitates the understanding the you know quick access to the right information. Do you in your work use any technology whether that's satellite imagery, remote sensing tools or or anything and how do you see this change in the future of accountability?
We have been recently using some tools particularly during co when you couldn't go to the ground we were looking at Google Earth and see if there were changes. Obviously, all these tools have a cost.
Yeah.
And sometimes you do not have the budgets to really do all these things. But as we move forward, it's it's it's becoming more obvious that we need to do this particular remote areas where you do not know what's happening when you do not have access to certain information or documents. But I'm also a a sort of older generation and so I'm leaving that to the younger to say what is it that we need to to prove a case you know I'm also doing something we have a network of mechanisms of accountability mechanisms we're now around 23 and we meet every year we just recently met and the discussions are around that how do we make sure that our our work our sector of accountability starts getting more robust predictable work all around every mechanism and so how do we train the people of tomorrow to be interested in this field but also to be to have come with the tools that are needed you know our our field started being very legalistic
yes
now it's changed you know I was the one of the first people heading a mechanism who was not a lawyer and and coming you have to be a lawyer to do this but then the environmental social safeguards change from being very legalistic to being a process so it's more knowing about the project knowing things so how do we build sufficient talent but also trying to build my dream when I retire which is will be in a few years is how do we build a university on accountability that we can have curriculara different subjects that you can study and learn and really get very robust things that will be challenged less by everyone like happen in the evaluation world or has been happening audit
or in any other field. So because we have to do good work if we if you really want to do what the communities are asking which to be a way that it's worthwhile to raise a complaint to you because then there will be a change or you will have the assurance that things have been done well whatever it is but you have to trust the people who are doing it really know what they're doing.
Yeah. And I feel like it comes with a certain set of expectations that if you go to the accountability mechanism, you will get the evaluation and that will be a conclusion satisfactory to you. Now you've brought examples where that wasn't the case. You could you can't prove the causality. You can't tie that complaint to a project. How do you move past this very unsatisfying ending? We we keep on saying in our office that you have done good work where everyone hates you because they didn't get what they wanted. Uh I've been in cases where I've been called useless because they have invested time and hope which is even worse thinking that they would get into this. Uh so I think to to work in accountability you have to be very resilient to start with and know the only guarantee that you have is that you have tried your best to do the best work possible and that whatever you have produced is out there. So transparency for us in accountability is a key element of our work because whatever might be happening there's a report that was responsibly produced and said that things were not correctly done or were correctly done or we don't have sufficient evidence. So maybe we have to build the evidence to do to say that they were complied with or not. So there's there's an interest on both parties to do better in in a way on the other side there the lack of satisfaction that you give to many complainers in many ways is for me we manage it the other way I manage I try to manage expectations as much as we can being very honest very truthful say we might be one of a potential suite of of alternatives that you have to do your think but the first thing I'm not going to stop your project I'm not going to give you compensation but I'm going to give you a robust process that might not lead to the conclusion that you want but I want you to trust the conclusion we have this case now that in problem solving where the complaintants have said that they would trust the studies now I'm going to take them at face value and say that they will trust the study even if the study doesn't come out with the outcome that they want and that then there's the responsibility also on the other side. know it's not only mine to give you what you want is that you have engaged in something in good faith and so yeah it's it's well it's it's humanity in order not its best form right yeah no you know a few months ago I was having a conversation with um a physicist who's a scientist developing machine learning algorithms for disaster risk reduction and I ask what happens if your model says one thing but your human intuition says another thing and what you've described the way you and your mechanism work is very objective is very following the the process and not letting your human emotions get the best of you. How do you deal with intuition when you know something is there is something there you just can't find it yet? I think that's what keeps you awake at night because say I have everything that seems to look very good. Uh but there's something nagging here, right? Something is not perfect. So that's where you you you really go into your deep dive. That's that's your also your responsibility and and that's just as impartial as as you can be. I think also after a long time in in this field you get to know that sometimes you have to trust when something doesn't sound right and how you then you how what is it what are the tools that you might find or where can you find other sources of evidence and that's when you have to become creative. This process is also not uh um 1 + 2 + 3 + 5. No, it it goes in different ways. When I get someone for example in my team that only understands oh it's one and then there the next step and then no this is not a linear thing. We have when something is not there but you feel that there's something that is should you should be looking at you go and look into it. And if you were wrong, that's wrong. That's especially important when you get a complaint early on. I I get a lot of my bank colleagues asking, "Why do you register a complaint when it seems to have no real basis or we know it has no basis?" I said because the risk of not registering it when I feel that there's something but I haven't been able to get into it is higher for the project than allowing it to go by. And that also gets into the need for you to be impartial because sometimes it's easier. We got a lot of complaints. We have a large active case load. We don't have too many people. We work very very hard. We work weekends. um we would like to have a lower case load. So sometimes your instincts say, "Oh, this one's easy. Let's throw it away." I've had in my life throwing away cases that eventually turn out to be really bad situations for a project. So that's your responsibility as well. So intuition you you trust. I do trust intuition, but not at the end. It's not what makes me decide on something. If I cannot find something, you I cannot say no matter how much I've tried, but but then it takes longer to process a case. You need to get more people to talk to. You have to find where else where's where is it hidden? And then this research thing, it's like going into a candy shop. I love investigating things. So
yeah, it sounds kind of like uh you know being a detective. It is.
And you're putting together the little pieces. Let me see. I cannot not find it's like uh I don't know if you going into this uh um safe rooms in which you if you don't get out not having all the because I have all the clues there but I can't find the one that's relevant. There we go. And and and and a lot of of my team have that same hunger to get at the truth or get at the evidence and that's what makes them good to really this is not the way it should be. Something's wrong. And obviously that also comes with their own professional uh background. Yeah, I have a couple of very good ENS people nowadays in my team and so they know they've been on the other side and they understand. But you also have the human rights people who know the other aspect and that's how they start complimenting each other. The discussions are quite rich. They say that doesn't sound good or this should have been happening like this.
Yeah. So, you've recently been renewed for your second term at the bank.
What's the next four years is going to look like? Well, I have uh I'm already in in in the last four years, but for me, I I'm very much into what brought me to EBD. I was asked to open a new office to build a team of internal experts. That means staff, bank staff, people who would work and know the bank and be able to do very robust work. So, I'm working on that. I'm still working on that. And be sure that when I leave, there's something that stays there for the next chief accountability officer comes and said, "Oh, the table is set. I just have to fine-tune things to my own liking." And eventually also one thing that's key for me to do in in my before I leave is institutional learning. And that means once you have a large enough case load, you start seeing things that are repeat issues that are coming up. Is there anything that we as a bank can learn from this that earlier on when you're designing a project when you're talking to clients you have to look into it and that's that's the real uh strong legacy of a mechanism at the end because you deal with the projects and the specific cases but eventually you learn from those and you avoid future mistakes and that would be Perfect. So then I could go and retire happily.
Well, I I wish you the best for this term and I hope you'll succeed in setting something up that works more efficiently because after all this is about people and this is about facilitating development development investments and the mandate of the bank.
Thank you. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure and yes, we're thank you because I think this is a wonderful podcast and and I wish you all success because making it more transparent of what we do and what does this mean for every country like mine that we want to be better and have a better way of life. This is the perfect way to do it. Thanks a lot.
Thank you so much and thank you for being here with us today. I hope you've learned a lot from the development banks and how they manage accountability and we'll be back with some more next time.
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