Elena Sorokina Crude Accountability presents the EBRD Direct Project Lending Accountability and Governance Toolkit designed specifically for civil society organizations that are impacted by EBRD funded projects. The guide will be helpful if one wishes to engage with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to promote political and environmental accountability, transparency, and participatory practices in policy and lending operations.
This toolkit outlines the basic principles of accountability relevant for interested stakeholders. This suite consists of the Environmental and Social Policy, the Performance Requirements and the Public Information Policy.
Like other development banks, the EBRD has a set of policies and standards outlining its social and environmental management systems. Policies and Performance Requirements are considered binding documents of the Bank, laying out responsibilities of the Bank and the borrowing client towards the environment and stakeholders in designing, implementing, and operating projects. This guide outlines the basic principles of accountability relevant for interested stakeholders.
It is to be used as a resource guide, keeping in mind that policies, strategies, and institutions are often updated. The latest reiterations of mentioned documents (Environmental and Social Policy, the Performance Requirements and the Public Information Policy) were revised and approved in 2014. For an in-depth understanding of the language and directives of these policies, it is important to read them in their entirety.
The EBRD’s accountability mechanisms were established to address issues associated with the Bank investment projects. For these mechanisms to properly function, civil society organizations, communities, and individuals should take an active position in raising social and environmental problems associated with the EBRD projects.
Accountability doesn’t work unless we do.