The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank announced today that its independent Compliance, Effectiveness and Integrity Unit (CEIU) is inviting the public to submit recommendations on the design of the AIIB Complaints Handling Mechanism. The mechanism’s objective is to proactively support project compliance and to rapidly solve the problems of people adversely affected by AIIB projects. The mechanism will also help the Bank to continuously learn from its experiences and strengthen its development practice.

“We are taking a very open and collaborative approach to establishing our complaints mechanism because its design needs to be responsive to the people who will use it,” said Hamid Sharif, Managing Director, CEIU. “Great ideas can come from anywhere and we welcome suggestions from any individual, organization or stakeholder to shape and inform the development of the Bank’s complaints process.”

Following best practices in transparency and accountability, the CEIU timeline will take a two-phased approach to stakeholder consultations, including an indicative timeline for the adoption of the mechanism’s procedures. A series video conferences are planned for both phases to foster more direct engagement. Written stakeholder submissions can also be sent by email or letter. The proposed schedule for public consultations and contact information for written submissions will be posted on the Bank’s website.

“We have the benefit of building our complaints mechanism from scratch, which means we can take best practices from the experience of other organizations in both the public and private sector. We are particularly interested in understanding what works and what does not work in existing processes so we can incorporate these insights into what we are developing for AIIB,” said Mr. Sharif.

About AIIB

AIIB is a new multilateral development bank founded to bring countries together to address the daunting infrastructure needs across Asia. Headquartered in Beijing, AIIB was established in 2015 by the original 57 signatories to the bank’s Articles of Agreement. Its mission is to improve economic and social development in Asia by investing in high quality, financially viable and environmentally friendly infrastructure projects.