On Thursday 15 April, 2021, GI-ESCR made a presentation at a webinar dubbed, “The Outsized Role of the US in Fueling Harm in Africa through Finance: A Call to Action for Investor Accountability in Africa“ held jointly by Accountability Counsel and African Coalition for Corporation Accountability (ACCA) on cases filed against Bridge International Academies at the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) in Kenya. The webinar was attended by over 50 participants drawn from the US government, US funders (public, private and philanthropic), policy-makers and funder representatives, alongside NGO partners.

This was the second in a series of webinars that build on a report that was published last year by Accountability Counsel and African Coalition for Corporation Accountability (ACCA) titled, “Accountability in Africa: Harm from International Financial Flows and Strategies for Supporting Community-Led Access to Remedy.” This report details the international investment flows into Africa, the environmental and social harm associated with those projects, and avenues to demand justice and remedy for that harm.

GI-ESCR’s presentation provided an update of the four cases filed against Bridge by parents and teachers of Bridge, and by the Vice President of the CAO. The presentation was able to articulate that the so-called Impact Investments, such as the World Bank, as well as philanthropy-backed private education projects can cause severe harm, including child abuse, discrimination and poverty- and therefore need to take accountability seriously. The presentation discussed concerns of bringing these complaints (including other litigation strategies) such as security, retaliation, capacity, resources.

The clarion call to investors, funders, and their regulators from the webinar was to avoid, mitigate, and remedy negative impacts of financial flows.