About IAP
Individuals and communities have long practiced and advocated for community-led development, a model where their plans and rights are valued and prioritized.
Even with significant political and economic power imbalances, communities for generations have bravely spoken out and mobilized their communities.
IAP is part of a global movement, rooted in the aspirations of people for justice and to thrive today and tomorrow. Efforts to shift today’s development model from its current focus on political and business interests to community-led priorities is a response to the unwanted and harmful projects that uproot people, end livelihoods and erase culture. It is a response to a power imbalance that, if redirected to community-led priorities, would improve lives and protect the environment.
IAP is an international human and environmental rights organization that works with communities, civil society and social movements to support their local campaigns at national and international levels.
IAP is a strategic convener within a global movement rooted in the aspirations of people to thrive today and tomorrow.
What if development were designed and lived by the same people?
The priorities of communities should lead every local process. Our Community Action Guides prepare community organizers around the world to collect local knowledge, inform and mobilize for the future they want.
The Global Advocacy Team is a proactive, inspiring initiative with community organizers in multiple countries to use local research and collective advocacy to design the communities and world we all are fighting for.
As a preventative effort, IAP creates new accessible technology to maximize the use of both public and locally generated data to reinforce campaigns. Through the Early Warning System, IAP and our partners exchange the newest information on proposed investments from development banks with community-led research ideally before funding has been decided.
IAP identifies influential governments, companies and investors to advance campaigns whether individually by community or holistically through policy advocacy. Working internationally across a range of sectors, IAP also hosts initiatives on climate justice and the preventive protection of communities and defenders.
Vision
IAP works for a world in which communities lead development where they live, work and play. In contrast to current practice, IAP advocates for a development process in which people claim and uphold their rights, the environment is respected, and all are able to live with dignity and thrive on the land they love.
Mission
IAP works in solidarity with communities, civil society and social movements to inform and amplify their campaigns, broaden access to information, and create spaces within and outside dominant power systems for communities to lead the development decisions that affect their lives and environment.
Goals
- Redistribute power to increase access, capacity and participation for community-led development.
- Reinforce the actions of communities, civil society and movements to hold governments, companies and investors accountable to human and environmental rights.
- Change the rules and practice of today’s prevailing top-down development model to prioritize the visions of communities.
Values
Integrity
We approach our work and our partnerships with respect, and a commitment to truth, authenticity and accuracy. We recognize the expertise and power of those who have come before us and those who walk with us. Therefore we build on the power of communities’ lived experiences and incorporate this wisdom into our actions.
Courage
We are grounded by our vision for deep systemic transformation. This demands boldness and audacity to see and work beyond the institutionalized status quo. We confront injustice and inequality with courageous conviction and bold tenacity, because the challenges faced by communities demand nothing less. We take action to defend the rights of people to life, self-determination, and a healthy environment.
Interdependence
We are one piece of a larger ecosystem united in solidarity with communities for development justice. Trust, mutual reliance and shared leadership are vital for the movement to create the systemic change we seek. We learn from shared knowledge with communities and partners.
Creativity
We are dedicated to ongoing transformation - of dominant systems and of ourselves - and collaborative innovation. We utilize bold and impactful tactics and strategies to disrupt the existing systems of power and oppression. With adaptability, we create space for possibility, opportunity, and change.
Strategies
Community Organizing
Communities have the desire and expertise to determine their own development priorities, but in today’s development, these decisions are regularly made without them. To ensure development is instead led by community priorities, IAP reinforces a well-organized resistance to proposed and existing projects and advocates for alternatives where communities can realize their own development priorities.
Data
Improved participation and access to information in the development process is not just about advocating for improved policy and practice among those deciding development. IAP believes access to information and improved participation is multi-directional: the personal experience and expertise from communities, activists, and local civil society should be exchanged with and contribute to information held by governments, companies and investors.
Advocacy
To reinforce community-led campaigns toward governments, companies and investors, IAP uses the policies and practice of development banks as a point of entry and the experience and expertise of communities as the center of advocacy.
Approaches
Partner
With the mutual intention of sustaining deep relationships and shared learning, we strengthen bonds and actions among communities, civil society and movements to advance community-led development. We march together through successes and setbacks.
Prevent
With communities and partners, we identify threats, exchange accessible information and leverage critical moments to proactively reinforce community-led action to prevent harm.
Transform
With inclusive, innovative and proven tactics, we creatively approach how we reclaim development to be community-led. We collectively reflect and evolve.
Reinforce
Respecting existing struggles and histories, we complement and build upon community-led priorities and campaigns. Using community-led research and data, IAP creates and widens spaces for the lived experience of people to lead the policy and practice of development.
Redistribute power
To realize community-led development, we recognize our role among communities, civil society and movements, to shift and build power outside of dominant systems.
Programs
Climate Justice
IAP's Climate Justice campaign centers the lived experiences and leadership of communities confronting the climate crisis. In solidarity with local communities, movements and civil society organizations, IAP supports community-led campaigns towards proposed and newly decided investments. IAP and partners leverage the priorities and participation of communities and local groups in decision-making spaces to continue building community-led development globally.
Read more: bit.ly/IAP_Climate
Defenders
IAP hosts a global collective of human rights defenders and corporate accountability organizations to forecast and prevent rights abuses from harmful development investments before they occur. Built with defender expertise, this initiative strengthens actions to protect communities and their resilience to continue shaping their own future.
Read more: bit.ly/IAP_Defenders
The Global Advocacy Team
The Global Advocacy Team initiative brings together incredible community activists from around the world to conduct community-led research and mobilize communities to strengthen local campaigns and collectively change development policy. To do this, the Global Advocacy Team reinforces existing local campaigns with community-led data and identifying development priorities. Based on real-life experiences, the Global Advocacy Team presents formal policy recommendations to change how development is designed, funded and implemented.
Read more: bit.ly/IAP_GAT
Community Action Guides
Used by community organizers to start or strengthen local campaigns, IAP’s Community Action Guides are interactive and accessible training materials which demystify the development process, introduce the actors involved, and offer strategies for community-led solutions to development. These are reinforced with collective exercises and accessible case examples about how other communities around the world have responded to development challenges.
Read more: bit.ly/IAP_Action
Early Warning System
The Early Warning System ensures local communities, and the organizations that support them, have verified information about investments being proposed at major development finance institutions and clear strategies for advocacy – ideally before funding is decided. The Early Warning System exchanges information, advice, tools and resources with communities and the local organizations supporting them. The information exchanged includes accessible information about investments, including the roles of any private actors, and critical data from community-led research efforts. With this data the Early Warning System exposes trends in development by sector, bank, geography and community response.
Read more: ews.rightsindevelopment.org
Contact
accountabilityproject.org
ews.rightsindevelopment.org
Blog: bit.ly/IAPblog
X: @4accountability
Facebook: bit.ly/IAP4FB
LinkedIn: bit.ly/IAP_LinkedIn
iap@accountabilityproject.org
ews@rightsindevelopment.org
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