Our Work
The IAP works at both the project level and at the more systemic policy and structural level to try to ensure respect for human rights and the environment, and true accountability. We are committed to long-term working relationships with affected communities to pursue justice and accountability for the harm they have suffered as a result of violations of their rights, and to accomplish systemic institutional change so that other communities do not continue to suffer the same fate.
Our projects and campaigns focus on Development-Induced Displacement, Legacy and Accountability at International Financial Institutions, and the development of Publications and Tools. Each focus area is designed to operate in solidarity with people working at the grassroots and international level in order to:
- Stop the externalization of project costs onto local people and the environment, which includes challenging particular problem projects and also the development paradigms and policy frameworks that allow destructive projects to happen;
- Advocate for the rights of people facing forcible eviction by development projects, and promote policy change towards negotiated settlements and respect for the principle of free, prior, informed consent (FPIC);
- Ensure that systems of accountability are fully effective, including mechanisms for ensuring remedial measures and policy compliance;
- Empower affected communities and their allies to assert their rights effectively, through strategic advice and information dissemination, and by helping facilitate international solidarity networks;
- Help civil society to understand and effectively utilize citizen-driven accountability mechanisms at IFIs;
- Provide reliable and credible analysis to allies and to decision-makers while challenging systemic problems relating to policy, structure and decision-making at IFIs; and
- Strengthen long-term working relationships between colleagues in the global south and the global north who are working on interlinked issues of human rights and the environment.
The IAP works with farmers, lawyers, fisherfolk, indigenous people, health care workers, activists, artists, scientists, and scholars who are on the front lines challenging the environmental and social destruction caused by unsustainable developmental projects. The work sometimes calls for policy expertise, sometimes calls for advocacy and engagement with decision-makers, and at other times it calls for travel to project areas to learn firsthand how best to lend support to grassroots struggles for justice and accountability, working with and learning from people who are directly affected by these issues.
