The Last Line of Defence: The World Bank's Inspection Panel.
When a World Bank Development project gets rolling, people's lives will be impacted. Sometimes for the better? Sometimes for the worse. If you are a person living in a project impacted community, and you feel that your life will worsen, what can you do? Protest? Standby and watch? Leave your home? These are all options, but another key option is to take your concerns to the highest levels of the World Bank. Sometimes forgotten in many international development studies courses, the World Bank's Inspection Panel is an arm's length body that will hear complaints, look over the details, and take it to the top brass in the World Bank. How do negatively impacted peoples get a hold of the panel? Is there accountability? Can the panel put the brakes on a potentially harmful project? Listen to this episode of GDP where Ramanie Kunanayagam, the Panel Chair of the World Bank Inspection Panel, takes us through the details. Ramanie Kunanayagam, is a Sri Lankan-born Australian citizen, was appointed to the Inspection Panel on December 16, 2018, and became Panel Chair on January 1, 2022. She brings to the Panel three decades of experience across diverse geopolitical and multicultural environments in the private and public sectors. Ms. Kunanayagam spent more than 10 years doing fieldwork in a remote part of East Kalimantan, Indonesia. She has held leadership positions in sustainability in both the private sector (working for two FTSE 10 companies) and the nonprofit sector. Most recently before joining the Panel she was the Global Head for Social Performance and Human Rights for BG Group. She has been a member of the boards of two international non-profit development organizations—RESOLVE and the Institute of Human Rights and Business. Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter: @ ProfessorHuish