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Panel Participates in Virtual Annual Meeting of IAM Network

IAMNet_Annual_Meeting_2020

Inspection Panel members and staff participated in the virtual annual meeting of the Independent Accountability Mechanisms (IAM) Network on September 22-24, 2020. Inspection Panel Chair Imrana Jalal spoke at a session on institutional reviews of IAM mandates and operations and shared the Panel’s experience with the just-completed Board review of its toolkit. Panel Executive Secretary Dilek Barlas spoke at a discussion with civil society organization (CSO) representatives on the topic of barriers to the eligibility of complaints filed with the IAMs, explaining how the Panel works with complainants to address the technical barriers to eligibility. 
 
Other topics discussed during the annual meeting included the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for IAM operations and providing remedy to communities that have been harmed by a development project. Topics discussed during the IAM-CSO roundtable included whether IAMs are the right fora for public goods complaints, how third-party involvement from a financial intermediary affects the eligibility of complaints, and how the IAMs respond when a complainant decides not to participate further in the process because of concerns about confidentiality, reprisals or uncertainty about whether the process meets their needs.
 
The Network is comprised of 20 IAMs at international financial institutions and is intended to foster collaboration, cooperation and knowledge sharing among its members. This year’s annual meeting, the Network’s 17th, was organized by the Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism at the Inter-American Development Bank and the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, the latter of which is currently the Network Secretariat. The meeting was conducted virtually because of the pandemic.