News & Media

Financial Intermediary subproject data exposed for the first time

December 6, 2021

“I had tears in my eyes when I saw my flooded home and village. Every time I think about my life before our village was flooded, I long to go back to that time.”

— Bong Kheun, resident of Srekor village, now fully submerged by the Lower Sesan 2 Dam

“We, community members affected by the Lower Sesan 2 Hydropower Project in Stung Treng Province, Cambodia, are writing to you to seek your assistance in addressing our ongoing concerns about the Project and the impacts it has caused to our lives. We understand that VietinBank is a key shareholder in the joint venture company that owns and operates the project…”

— Letter from affected communities to VietinBank, November 2020

The grim story of the communities affected by the Lower Sesan 2 dam, a hydropower project in Cambodia, is but one of many – a familiar cycle of inadequate consultation, lack of fair and appropriate compensation, and forced displacement from ancestral homes, property, and livelihoods under extreme pressure. Compounding these issues is lack of access to the basic information of who is funding the project that is irrevocably altering the lives and future of their communities. The Lower Sesan 2 Dam is being partly funded by VietinBank and ABBank, two financial intermediary (FI) clients of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). It was only through the support of international NGOs with access to financial databases that the communities affected by Lower Sesan 2 discovered the financial link to the World Bank’s private sector arm and filed a case at its accountability mechanism in 2018 – years into their attempted engagement with project financiers.

Another example is a recent complaint filed at the Independent Complaints Mechanism (ICM) describing how FirstRand Bank’s investment in New Liberty Gold Mine is linked to significant environmental and social impacts on several communities in Liberia. FirstRand Bank is a financial intermediary of Germany’s DEG, France’s Proparco, and FMO from The Netherlands, three European based Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). Community leaders in Liberia say the mining company has taken their homes and farms, polluted their water, and broken promises to provide jobs, schools and other facilities. Another common trend between these two cases is that it was difficult for affected communities to know who are the financiers behind the project that is affecting them, let alone what protections they have and how to seek redress.

Financial intermediaries represent the nexus between development finance and commercial banking. In other words, private sector banks that receive financing from a development finance institution (DFI). DFIs use private sector banks as financial intermediaries on the premise that it will expand their development finance reach and raise the standards of the financial sector. Financial intermediaries can include commercial banks, private equity funds, leasing and insurance companies. The big question and big concern is whether DFIs can mobilize commercial finance without compromising their development mandates — with transparency and environmental and social standards as a core part of that.

Paths for DFIs to channel funds through financial intermediaries to finance projects of varying levels of risk. The risk levels shown in the graphic relate to environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk and it does not include other forms of risk such as financial risks. Photo: Oxfam International

The disclosure of such basic information is important given that financial intermediary lending continues to neglect principles and standards that most development banks have in place in terms of transparency. For this reason, in 2021, Oxfam International partnered with the Profundo, the International Accountability Project and the Early Warning System to contribute to bridging this transparency gap by making information on high-risk sub-clients and sub-projects of IFC and FMO’s financial intermediary investments accessible within the database.

The Early Warning System is an initiative that seeks to ensure communities have access to verified information on projects proposed and funded by development banks that are likely to impact them. As part of Oxfam International’s Open Books’s report and research, this collaboration launches a new initiative which organizes and makes public, for the first time, new, accessible information on the high-risk sub-projects of 318 financial intermediary investments made by IFC and FMO which impact people and the environment in at least 76 countries. The data includes financial intermediary investments from 2017 through 2020. In addition to illustrating the ownership structures of these sub-clients, where this information is available, the Early Warning System database also connects each private actor to other investments made by development banks in the same company. In total, relationships among 12,800 private actors are documented and now public. The value of these investments is $38.2 billion USD.

Explore the sub-clients and sub-projects of IFC and FMO’s financial intermediary investments using this interactive data visualization. Click the project title to view project documentation in the Early Warning System Database. Download the entire list of sub-projects and sub-clients using the button on the bottom left of the visualization.

Development banks like IFC and FMO, among others, are increasingly channeling their financial support through financial intermediaries (60 and 40 per cent of their total portfolio respectively) on the premise that financial intermediaries will expand the reach of development finance and raise the standards of the finance sector. However, some of the devastating impacts of this approach to financing development projects has been well-documented in a number of projects leaving behind serious environmental destruction and entire communities being forcibly evicted.

The opacity and lack of transparency around financial intermediary investments made by development finance institutions means weak enforcement of environmental and social standards, lack of clarity regarding where such development finance ends up, and what the development impacts of such investments are. And importantly, that communities affected by these high-risk projects are left behind suffering the negative impacts not knowing who is behind those investments and what protections they have.

This year some DFIs have started a process of amending or reviewing their policies on transparency and/or financial intermediaries like the European Investment Bank where civil society has engaged providing inputs on how to improve their transparency practices.

We understand that FMO will open a public consultation process on a new Position Statement on Financial Intermediary Lending before the end of the year. FMO states that transparency on their financing and investments are fundamental to fulfilling their development mandate. Unfortunately, in practice, FMO does not disclose any information about sub projects supported via its investment in Financial Intermediary clients.

Last year the IFC became a leader among its peers by committing to require its financial intermediary clients including commercial banks to “annually report the name, location by city, and sector for subprojects funded by the proceeds from IFC”; however, we are still waiting to see how IFC discloses such basic financial intermediary subproject information in practice. We certainly expect that other DFIs will follow IFC’s lead. Meanwhile, public disclosure of information about the companies and sub-projects being financed by development finance institutions’ financial intermediary clients remains sparse and inadequate.

Source: Publish What You Fund’s Report: Financial Intermediaries Workstream 5 Working Paper. Financial intermediary sub-investment disclosure of basic information. Traffic light code: Green: disclosure was found; Orange: disclosure found in some; Red: no disclosure.

While there are still legitimate questions and challenges about how to disclose sub-project information of financial intermediaries, we maintain the position that access to such information is a right itself, and that (lack of) disclosure of such information by development banks and their financial intermediaries is a choice and not a legal roadblock. Development banks and their financial intermediary clients should commit to a time-bound transparency and disclosure reform agenda of disaggregated higher risk subproject-level information, develop a comprehensive transparency policy, and set up appropriate mechanisms for subproject information disclosure of higher risk subprojects and activities they engage on regardless of the financial instrument used.

This disclosure policy and system should be a core component of their environmental and social management systems and policies. While recognizing that this is the responsibility of development finance institutions like IFC and FMO to do themselves, with this financial intermediary data and through the Early Warning System, we wanted to exemplify that such disclosure is possible.

It took two NGOs and a research agency significant amount of time, resources, and working hours to put this financial intermediary data together, while it should be a basic right to have access to this information. The question is why getting access to such basic information is made so hard when development institutions like IFC, FMO, and other DFIs should have this information at their fingertips and make it accessible?

Read additional information about the Financial Intermediary data.

This post was co-authored by Christian Donaldson, Economic Justice Senior Policy Advisor at Oxfam International’s Washington Office, Imke Greven, Policy Advisor Land Rights at Oxfam Novib, and Ryan Schlief, Executive Director at the International Accountability Project.

Failure to vaccinate the world created perfect breeding ground for Omicron, say campaigners

December 6, 2021

Campaigners from the People’s Vaccine Alliance say the refusal of pharmaceutical companies to openly share their vaccine science and technology and the lack of action from rich countries to ensure access to vaccines globally have created the perfect breeding ground for new variants such as Omicron.

A year since a UK grandmother became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, great strides have been made to fully vaccinate over three billion people, but many poorer parts of the world have been left behind. While countries like the UK and Canada have had enough doses to fully vaccinate their entire populations, Sub-Saharan Africa has only received enough doses to vaccinate 1 in 8 people. The number of people in the UK who’ve had their third booster jab is almost the same as the total number of people fully vaccinated across all of the world’s poorest countries.

The People’s Vaccine Alliance, which has over 80 members including the African Alliance, Oxfam and UNAIDS, are calling for pharmaceutical firms and rich nations to change course before it is too late. This must include:

Immediate approval of the waiving of intellectual property rules to end the monopoly control of pharmaceutical firms over COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. The World Trade Organization (WHO) General Council must urgently reconvene now, not next year, to finally get a waiver agreed.
All vaccines including new versions of vaccines designed to combat the Omicron variant to be declared global public goods, and vaccine recipes and know-how shared openly with producers worldwide via the WHO.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS and Co-Chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said: “Omicron is with us because we have failed to vaccinate the world. This should be a wake-up call.

“Business as usual has led to huge profits for pharmaceutical firms, but many people left unvaccinated meaning that this virus continues to mutate. It is the definition of madness to keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. We need to press reset.

“We call on Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech and others to change course. You have made huge profits in the last year. We now have vaccine billionaires. You don’t need to make any more money. Changing your vaccines to meet the challenge of Omicron is no good if your vaccine recipes are once again locked up behind a wall of profit and monopoly.”

The Alliance are also calling on rich nations to change course by using all their powers to insist on the open sharing of successful vaccine technology and know-how and to fund a huge expansion in vaccine production all over the world.

Back in March, the Alliance along with 77 epidemiologists from some of the world’s leading academic institutions warned that unless we vaccinate the world, we’d be at risk of virus mutations that could render our current vaccines ineffective.

Maaza Seyoum, of the African Alliance and People’s Vaccine Alliance Africa, said: “Fighting to buy up limited supplies of hugely expensive vaccines to protect your own citizens whilst ignoring the rest of the world will only lead to more variants, more mutations, more lockdowns and more lives lost. The same leaders, after failing the world repeatedly while allowing profiteering, are now laying the blame at the doorstep of the countries they have ignored.

“Pharmaceutical monopolies and profiteering have prevented vaccination in Africa and the rest of the developing world. It is time that pharmaceutical companies and rich nations finally put protecting people and putting an end to this pandemic ahead of profits, monopolies and self-defeating attempts to protect themselves whilst allowing this disease to rampage across the rest of the world.”

Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager Anna Marriott said: “With the new threat of the Omicron variant, it is clear that we cannot just booster our way out of the pandemic while leaving much of the developing world behind. Unless all countries are vaccinated as soon as possible we could see wave after wave of variants.

“What is the point in developing new vaccines in 100 days if they are then only sold in limited amounts to the highest bidder, once again leaving poor nations at the back of the queue?

“We cannot correct the mistakes of the past 21 months but we need rich countries to chart a new path forward in which they step up and insist the pharmaceutical companies start sharing their science and technology with qualified manufacturers around the world, so we can vaccinate people in all countries and finally end the pandemic.”

In a statement sent to European Union negotiators and member states this week, the People’s Vaccine Alliance joined with more than 170 charities, NGOs, unions and campaign groups – including ONE campaign and the International Union of Food Workers – in criticising the EU’s opposition to a waiver of intellectual property rules. The statement said that “the identification of the Omicron variant only heightens the urgency of a change in approach and is evidence of why the EU’s position is a threat to us all”.

Last week Norway was the latest of more than 100 countries to offer their support for the waiver. Meanwhile President Emmanuel Macron withdraw France’s earlier support, a decision the Alliance has called ludicrous and dangerous in the face of the new variant.

John Mark Mwanika, ITF Urban Transport Chair, Uganda, said: “It’s not only shameful that six times more booster shots are being administered daily than primary doses in low-income countries, it’s an enormous risk to ending the pandemic globally.

“It is no coincidence that the new Omicron variant was first discovered by scientists in countries which have been denied the right to produce their own vaccines. We are in a global emergency and workers are paying the price, particularly in the Global South.”

The People’s Vaccine Alliance has created a virtual memorial wall to honour and remember those who have lost their lives to COVID-19, and to demand that leaders act to prevent more deaths.

Notes to editors:

The People’s Vaccine Alliance has created a virtual memorial wall will be revealed at peoplesvaccine.org/memorial-wall on 8 December, marking a year since the first vaccine was administered.
Sub-Saharan Africa countries have received enough doses to fully vaccinate 136,765,144 people, 12.8 per cent of the total population or 1 in 8, according to Airfinity data analysed by the People’s Vaccine Alliance.
Figures for how many vaccines the UK and other Western countries have received are from Airfinity.
According to Our World in Data 9 million people in Low Income Countries are fully vaccinated. As of 2 December, the UK had administered booster doses to just over 19 million people, according to: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations
Information on the survey of epidemiologists carried out by the People’s Vaccine Alliance in March available here.
The full statement to the EU and list of signatories is available here.

Oxfam reacts to the UN Global Humanitarian Plan for 2022

December 2, 2021

In reaction to the launch today of the UN Global Humanitarian Plan for 2022, Oxfam Global Programs Director, Lydia Zigomo, said:

“Around the world today, humanitarian need is at its highest-ever level, and what is worse is that the international community has long known all the terrible causes behind it. The people who are most in need of help have been ignored as rich nations have turned inwards in response to the COVID-19 crisis – hording vaccines, continuing their huge carbon emissions, and closing their borders to those seeking safety.

Around 274 million people worldwide, many of whom are women and girls, are experiencing unimaginable suffering because of three lethal Cs – climate change, conflict and COVID-19. They urgently need help. For this reason, the UN is asking for the world’s largest appeal to date, a 17 percent increase compared to last year, and rich nations must step up to avoid a catastrophic failure ahead.

Oxfam calls upon all governments, especially the rich nations who are most responsible for the climate crisis and vaccine inequality, to fulfil their obligations and channel more funding to match the humanitarian need and help immediately to save lives. Governments and the international community must ensure a more coordinated response to help communities rebuild their lives, ensuring that women and local organisations on the frontline of the humanitarian response are better funded.”

Notes

Oxfam’s Global Program Director is at the meeting and available for interviews
The Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) 2022 launches on 2 December in Geneva. It is the world’s most comprehensive humanitarian assessment. The report will be available on the report website: gho.unocha.org.
The UN Global Humanitarian Overview 2022 can be found at https://gho.unocha.org/
Photos with captions and UNifeed video
The launch is aired live on UN Web TV here.

New database addresses lack of transparency about financial intermediary investments of IFC and FMO

December 1, 2021

A coalition of organisations has published a new database today revealing US $38.2 billion worth of investment and financial relationships – including “high-risk” projects – that involve 318 financial intermediary clients of Dutch development bank FMO and the World Bank’s private lending arm, the IFC.

The organisations that crunched the database numbers are Oxfam, economic research agency Profundo, the International Accountability Project and the Early Warning System.

The database is important in countering claims by big development institutions like FMO and IFC that such information is “commercially confidential” and that it is too difficult for them to meet the levels of transparency demanded by civil society and local communities who may be harmfully affected by these lending projects.

The database reveals the destination of investments from FMO and IFC-funded clients across at least 76 countries from 2017-20. In total, the database tracks the money flows from FMO and IFC down through the 318 financial intermediaries to 12,800 private actors.

The IFC and FMO are both heavily involved in this growing form of development financing, where development banks invest directly into third-party “financial intermediaries” like hedge funds and commercial banks via loans, equity and guarantees, on the premise it will extend their financial reach and raise standards. In 2020 around 60% – or US $6.7 billion – of the IFC’s entire investment portfolio was exposed via financial intermediaries, and around 40% or €3.7 billion for the FMO.

However, these financial intermediary clients of IFC and FMO invest in different development activities including “high-risk projects” with the potential to harm people and the environment, such as companies involved in mining and oil extraction projects.

There is growing evidence of such harmful projects like the Sesan dam in Cambodia that flooded out entire villages and the New Liberty Gold Mine in Liberia which displaced people, exacerbated poverty and polluted local water sources. These projects were funded via FMO or IFC intermediary clients, but affected communities were not adequately consulted or given access to information in order to seek redress.

“FMO’s lack of transparency about their investments in financial institutions makes it impossible to monitor whether environmental and social standards are being enforced. The lack of clarity about where FMO’s money ends up makes it very difficult to determine the impact of these investments. But above all, it means that local communities affected by risky or harmful projects are unable to find out who is behind the investments, what protection they can demand and where to find redress,” said Imke Greven, land rights expert Oxfam Novib.

“Local communities do not have access to this kind of information about financial flows. Access to such information is a human right in itself, and this database can play an important role in that. Failure to publish such information by development banks and their financial intermediaries is a choice. This newly developed database shows that it is possible,” said Ryan Schlief, Executive Director International Accountability Project.

“It is appalling that development finance institutions still don’t disclose such basic information. There is no reason for them to make it so hard to allow access to such basic information when they should have it as part of their due diligence and make it accessible,” said Christian Donaldson, Senior Policy Advisor at Oxfam International.

“Last year, the IFC became the first institution to commit to disclose this information on its website, even though we are still waiting for that to happen. We strongly encourage other development finance institutions to follow suit. This database shows it is perfectly possible to do so,” Donaldson said.

“For NGOs to develop this database is a time-consuming and costly process due to the limited resources and limited information available to them. As such, the database represents only the tip of the iceberg since researchers don’t have access to the internal accounts of the financial institutions and the resources available to the development banks. The research has shown that it is possible to provide detailed financial intermediary disclosure. Now it is up to the DFIs to do so themselves,” said Ward Warmerdam, Senior Financial Researcher, Profundo.

World Trade Organisation talks on vaccines postponed due to concerns over the spread of a new variant of COVID-19

November 30, 2021

Responding to the announcement that World Trade Organisation talks on vaccines due to take place in Geneva next week have been postponed due to concerns over the spread of a new variant of COVID-19 which has emerged in South Africa, People’s Vaccine Alliance spokesperson and Oxfam health Policy Manager, Anna Marriott, said:

“The vaccine apartheid that rich countries and the World Trade Organisation have refused to address is ultimately responsible for the decision to postpone these talks.

“It should be a stain on the conscience of those who have blocked the waiver of Intellectual Property that South Africa is now facing the threat of a dangerous new virus variant with less than a quarter of its population fully vaccinated, especially given the fact the country has been so vocal in calling for the waiver which would allow more vaccines to be produced globally.

“There can be no more delays, putting pharmaceutical profits before people’s lives is clearly a risk to us all. We do not need a ministerial summit to agree to this, we just need governments to put the good of humanity above the profits of a handful of companies.”

The Ignored Pandemic Report

November 25, 2021

A new Oxfam report shows an undeniable increase in gender-based violence (GBV) during the COVID-19 pandemic around the world to which too many governments and donors are not doing enough to tackle.

The report, The Ignored Pandemic: The Dual Crisis of Gender-Based Violence and COVID-19, showed the number of calls made by survivors to domestic violence hotlines in ten countries during the first months of lockdown. The data reveals a 25 – 111 percentage surge; in Argentina (25%), Colombia (79%), Tunisia (43%), China (50%), Somalia (50%), South Africa (69%), UK (25%), Cyprus (39%), Italy (73%) and the largest increase in Malaysia where calls surged by over 111%.

In many households, coronavirus has created a ‘perfect storm’ of social and personal anxiety, stress, economic pressure, social isolation, including with abusive family members or partners, and rising alcohol and substance use, resulting in increases in domestic abuse.

Meanwhile, India too recorded an increase of 250 percent of domestic violence cases, according to the National Commission for Women. Domestic violence counselors there reported being unable to reach women and girls who were grievously injured or suicidal or those whose partners controlled their access to phones.

The report shows that not enough countries have acted with sufficient seriousness to tackle the GBV pandemic. Even before the surge in GBV cases sparked by the pandemic, in 2018 alone, over 245 million women and girls were subjected to sexual or physical violence by an intimate partner – a greater number than the global total of coronavirus cases (199m) between October 2020 and October 2021.

“It is a scandal that millions of women and girls, and LGBTQIA+ people have to live through this double pandemic of violence and COVID-19. GBV has led to injuries, emotional distress, and increasing poverty and suffering, all of which are utterly inexcusable and avoidable. The pandemic has exposed the systematic failure of governments around the world to protect women and girls and LGBTQIA+ people from violence against them – simply because of who they are,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher.

Women’s rights organisations whose mission is to support women and girls and LGBTQIA+ people from violence have been more likely to have been hit by funding cuts, exactly at the time when their work is most needed. In an Oxfam survey published in June this year, over 200 women’s rights organisations across 38 countries reported reduced funding and shrinking access to decision-making spaces. Thirty-three percent had to lay off between one to ten staff, while nine percent had to close altogether.

Even though 146 UN member states have formally declared their support for action against GBV in their COVID-19 response and recovery plans, only a handful have followed through. Of the $26.7 trillion that governments and donors mobilised to respond to the pandemic in 2020, just 0.0002% has gone into combating GBV.

“The pandemic has worsened long-standing gender discriminations, and this has increased the vulnerability of women and girls and LGBTQIA+ people to violence and abuse. If governments do not deliberately initiate strong, properly funded strategies to tackle this, the gains made in women’s empowerment in the last 30 years are at risk. We need to avert this, and the time is now,” said Bucher.

A few governments, however, have made efforts to respond to the GBV crisis. For instance, Indonesia and New Zealand introduced national protocols and identified GBV service providers as essential workers. South Africa took steps to strengthen GBV reporting channels.

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence that commences today until 10 December 2021 provides an opportunity for governments, donors, and activists to reflect on the emerging issues of inequality that put women and girls at risk and address them urgently. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that governments can take extraordinary measures to protect their citizens and respond to deadly crises when spurred to action. We need to see more efforts to tackle gender-based violence.

Oxfam recommends that states and governments ensure a more coordinated, comprehensive, and multi-sectoral GBV response that enables survivors to access effective and quality services. Governments and donors should channel more funding to women’s rights organisations and feminist movements working to end GBV and support survivors. Additionally, more funding should be allocated to better data collection and analysis of gender-disaggregated national statistics to inform evidence-based interventions to end GBV.

“As the world comes together to mark 30 years of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, there is an urgent need for a truly gendered approach in every country’s effort to respond to and recover from COVID-19. Governments and donors need to live up to their commitments to promote gender equality by ensuring investment in all the areas we know could help end GBV. Only by doing so can we strive for a future that is more just, safe, and in which people live free from discrimination,” said Bucher.

Notes:

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international event that runs for 16 days from 25^th November, the International Day for the Elimination of violence against women, until 10^th December, Human Rights Day. This year’s event marks 30 years since its first commemoration in 1991. The event is a platform used by organisations and activists globally to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls.

The data on calls to domestic/GBV helplines in ten low, middle- and high-income countries during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has been compiled from different UN, national and international NGO reports and government sources. The increase in call volumes is presented as a range between the lowest and highest percentage value among the different countries.

For more information or an interview, contact:

Florence Ogola, in Nairobi [email protected] +254 733770522

Read the report: https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/publications/the-ignored-pandemic-the-dual-crises-of-gender-based-violence-and-covid-19-621309