How do you file a grievance against a project, and what happens next?

Every lender-financed project must have a grievance mechanism, it must be free to use, and using it cannot cost you your right to go to court. You can normally lodge a complaint in writing, verbally, in person or by phone, and you are entitled to an acknowledgement, a reference, and an answer within a stated period.

How to lodge one so it cannot be lost

1. Get the reference number. A complaint with no reference is a conversation. Ask for it at the time and write it down.
2. State the facts and the date — what happened, where, who was involved, what you are asking for.
3. Keep a copy of anything you submit, and photograph anything physical.
4. Ask when you will get an answer, and note the date. The mechanism should have published response times.[1]
5. If it is not answered, escalate — the mechanism should have a second level that is not the same office as the first.

What the project must not do

• Charge you to lodge a complaint.
• Require you to withdraw it as a condition of being paid.
• Route your complaint back to the person it is about.
• Treat your use of the mechanism as replacing your access to the courts.[4]
• Retaliate in any form — which is itself a matter to escalate.

If the project's mechanism does not work

This happens, and there is a route above it. Every major development finance institution has an independent accountability mechanism that accepts complaints directly from affected communities: the CAO for IFC-financed projects, the Inspection Panel for World Bank projects, and equivalent bodies at the African Development Bank and other lenders.[2]

They are free, they accept complaints in local languages, and complaints can be brought by a group or by a representative. Land acquisition and resettlement is consistently among the largest categories of complaint they receive.[3]

Two practical points: they generally expect you to have tried the project's own mechanism first, and they have most leverage while the financing relationship is live. Raising an issue early is worth considerably more than raising it after the loan is repaid.

What makes a complaint effective

Specificity. A complaint that says the compensation is unfair is harder to act on than one that says: my award records 14 mature coffee bushes; there were 43; here is the inventory sheet I was given and here are photographs; I raised it on 3 March and have had no reply.

Where an issue affects many households — a rate below what replacement actually costs, a whole settlement omitted from the census — lodge it collectively. One complaint on behalf of forty households is stronger than forty separate ones and far harder to settle quietly.