A/HRC/36/40 D. Compliance Advisor Ombudsman 79. As mentioned above, the Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, created in 1991, is the independent accountability mechanism for IFC and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). The Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman is mandated “to serve as a fair, trusted, and effective independent accountability mechanism and to improve the environmental and social performance of IFC and MIGA”. The Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman chooses its investigations independently and reports directly to the President of the World Bank Group. 80. Among its recent investigations, the Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman has made useful recommendations concerning the failure of the IFC to monitor the environmental and social performance of the Amalgamated Plantations Private Limited project in India. It concluded: CAO has made a number of noncompliance findings … These cover IFC’s preinvestment E&S (environmental and social) review as well as its supervision of the project … IFC underestimated the E&S challenges associated with the project. Addressing these in accordance with IFC requirements will require the dedication of resources and relevant sectoral expertise beyond that which IFC has made available to the client to date … In light of the noncompliance findings … CAO will keep this investigation for monitoring … until actions taken by IFC assure CAO that IFC is addressing its noncompliance findings. 111 In another case, the Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman audited IFC investment in a coal-fired power plant near the port town of Mundra in Gujarat, India. Complainants were fisher people living in the vicinity of the project who suffered environmental impacts of the plant operation. The audit concluded that: IFC’s E&S review … did not support the formation of a robust view as to whether the project could be expected to meet requirements of the Performance Standards over a reasonable period of time …. Weaknesses in IFC’s E&S review process also meant that required opportunities to consider alternative project designs to avoid or minimize E&S impact were missed …. CAO has concerns that a framework for managing E&S impact that can be audited and monitored has yet to be established: the lacking elements being a consolidated statement of the requirements against which performance is monitored, using verifiable data … Confidence among the IFC team in the client’s E&S capacity and commitment, combined with a view that the project is performing well from an E&S perspective, have meant that IFC has not treated the Complainants’ concerns as compliance issues. In accordance with the CAO Operational Guidelines, this audit will remain open and subject to CAO monitoring until CAO is assured that IFC has moved back into compliance with its E&S commitments.112 81. Other significant audits are summarized in annex VII to the present report. However, it must be stated that, as with the Inspection Panel, the Ombudsman does not have the authority to remedy abuses himself. As Human Rights Watch has observed, the Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman investigates, but “it is the IFC that determines how to address the investigator’s findings and often it chooses not to”.113 V. A way forward 82. The Independent Expert welcomes the many positive measures already taken by the World Bank to address systemic and extrinsic problems and encourages the Board of 111 112 113 www.cao-ombudsman.org/cases/documentlinks/documents/CAOInvestigationReportofIFCinvestmentinAPPL_EN.PDF, p. 11. See www.cao-ombudsman.org/cases/document-links/documents/CAOAuditReportC-I-R6-Y12F160.pdf, p. 5. See www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/21/world-banks-view-through-looking-glass. 19