Meaningful policy change
“Achieving meaningful policy change is often a slow process. … [I]mpacts generally unfold over decades.” said the late Sandra Smithey, a former Mott Environment program officer, in a 2014 article.
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International Finance
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Highlights
From 1988 through 2025, the Foundation provided over $138 million to 124 organizations from 24 different countries that worked on international finance issues.
Grantees worked to inform the development of accountability mechanisms at the World Bank and other multilateral banks, both public and private.
Those mechanisms hold banks accountable for social and environmental impacts caused by development projects they fund, and they give affected communities a process for voicing concerns.
Mott’s grantmaking has focused on increasing accountability among multilateral banks and supporting the global transition to clean energy.
Among the results: In 2018, after nearly two decades of debate and advocacy, the World Bank stopped funding oil and natural gas projects worldwide. The bank also shifted the $1 billion it was providing annually for oil and gas extraction to financing renewable energy projects. Several other multilateral banks soon followed suit.
Mott grantees have been working for nearly four decades to improve the transparency and accountability practices of international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, that invest in major energy and infrastructure projects in developing countries. The goal is to minimize the negative impacts such projects have on the environment and communities.
The Foundation’s work on these issues began in 1988. It was prompted by two realizations: Many of the most serious environmental problems are global in scope, and the lending practices of some international finance institutions played a role in those issues. Reform of international finance remains a pillar of Mott’s environmental grantmaking to this day.
A key part of Mott’s work has been supporting grantees that worked to inform the development of accountability mechanisms at the World Bank and other multilateral banks, both public and private. Those mechanisms hold multilateral banks accountable for social and environmental impacts caused by development projects they fund, and they give communities affected by those projects a process by which to voice their concerns.
From 1988 through 2025, the Foundation provided over $138 million to 124 organizations from 24 different countries that worked on international finance issues.
Where these accountability mechanisms were once unique, they are now the standard for all public and private development finance institutions. That’s huge.”![A person with curly, medium-length hair and a short beard wears a light blue collared shirt and a dark checkered blazer, standing in a bright indoor space with large windows and a staircase in the background.]()
David Hunter, president of Peregrine Environmental Consulting and a professor of international environment law at American University’s Washington College of Law.
An outgrowth of World War II
Government-funded multilateral banks, including the World Bank, collectively pump over $100 billion annually into developing countries to finance new infrastructure and other projects designed to foster economic growth. The origin of those types of banks dates to the 1940s, when the World Bank Group was established to help Europe rebuild after World War II. That eventually led to the establishment of regional development banks.
The Asian Development Bank provides loans for roads, dams, power plants and other projects in its 67 member countries.
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank provides financing for infrastructure and other projects in 109 member countries.
The World Bank Group finances infrastructure and other development projects in 189 countries, which is all but six countries in the world.
The China Development Bank has financed over $600 billion in infrastructure projects across more than 90 countries.
The Inter-American Development Bank provides financing for development projects in 26 member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Global Reach of Multilateral Banks
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Multilateral banks can drive much-needed economic growth, but projects planned poorly and without the participation of the communities they are likely to impact can disrupt Indigenous and traditional communities, lead to forced displacement, destroy livelihoods and damage vital ecosystems. Mott grantees have worked with numerous multilateral banks to reduce the risk of new developments harming communities or ecosystems.
“When this work started, there were no social or environmental standards,” said Elana Berger, executive director of the Bank Information Center, a Mott grantee. “If a World Bank project ruined your life, it was tough luck — there was nothing you could do.” (Read related article.)
Berger said Mott’s long-term support for organizations working on standards and accountability mechanisms was key to bringing about positive changes. It was a key part of Mott’s grantmaking strategy, which focused on two overarching issues: increasing accountability among multilateral banks and supporting the global transition to clean energy by encouraging those banks to shift investments from fossil fuels, a primary source of climate change, to renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar power.
“Achieving meaningful policy change is often a slow process. … [I]mpacts generally unfold over decades,” said the late Sandra Smithey, a former Mott Environment program officer, in a 2014 article. “Our commitment to staying the course has helped the field minimize the negative social and environmental impacts of development finance, while maximizing the positive economic benefits of development in countries that need it most.”
Case in point: In 2018, after nearly two decades of debate and pressure from advocacy groups supported by Mott and other funders, the World Bank stopped funding oil and natural gas projects worldwide. The bank also shifted the $1 billion it was providing annually for oil and gas extraction to financing renewable energy projects, such as solar and wind power. (Read related article.)
That decision rippled through the World Bank’s 189 member countries. Several multilateral banks that financed infrastructure projects in Latin America, South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia shifted funding from oil and gas exploration and coal-fired power plants to renewable energy projects. In 2019, the European Investment Bank also stopped financing fossil fuel projects and shifted funding to renewable energy, energy efficiency and green infrastructure projects.
Highlights of Mott grantees’ work include the following:
- In 1989, Mott helped establish the Bank Information Center to monitor World Bank lending and advocate for appropriate safeguards to protect communities in the path of harmful, bank-financed projects.
- In 1993, the World Bank established an Inspection Panel that provided a complaint mechanism for people who believe they had been harmed, or would be harmed, by bank-funded dams, power plants or other infrastructure projects.
- A 2002 case before the World Bank’s Inspection Panel led to resettlement benefits for more than 50,000 people forced from their homes by construction of the Yacyreta hydroelectric dam, which straddles the border between Argentina and Paraguay.
- In 2011, the Mott-supported Accountability Counsel worked with members of the Indigenous Chinanteco community to halt construction of a controversial hydroelectric dam in in Oaxaca, Mexico. The dam would have cut off access to the Arroyo Sal, a culturally important natural spring that provides the community with food and drinking water.
- In 2019, after Mott expanded its grantmaking to focus on Chinese banks, advocacy work by the Foundation’s grantees helped persuade the the Bank of China to suspend work on the $1.8 billion Batang Toru hydroelectric dam on the Indonesian Island of Sumatra. The dam was slated to be built in the world’s only known habitat for the Tapanuli orangutan, a critically endangered species.
Sustainable development in the Amazon forest
Another major focus of Mott’s international finance grantmaking has been supporting organizations that advocate for sustainable development in South America, especially in the Amazon forest. In recent years, those groups have worked to strengthen environmental and social safeguards for development projects, with a focus on energy infrastructure and related mining projects.
Mott also has supported community-based organizations that work to protect people at risk of harm from development projects financed by international development banks. One of the most recent success stories to emerge from that work involved a controversial plan to build a large hydroelectric dam on the Arinos River in the Brazilian Amazon. After a decade of community protests and advocacy work by Mott grantees, the federal government rejected the project.
Mott grantees have informed numerous decisions that provided better protection for communities in the path of infrastructure projects. Many of those decisions had a global impact because they changed the lending policies of banks that finance projects around the world. Lending policies can affect the lives of millions of people.
One of the most significant examples of accountability mechanisms bringing about positive change involved the China Development Bank. In 2019, that bank, along with other international financial institutions, signed a set of green investment principles for the Belt and Road project. The massive infrastructure project already has provided over $600 billion for construction projects in countries around the world.
The bank embraced those standards in response to groundbreaking research by the Mott-supported Global Development Policy Center at Boston University. Researchers there documented the soaring environmental, economic and social costs associated with fossil fuel projects in the Belt and Road Initiative.
Chad Dobson, who founded of the Bank Information Center, said Mott’s support for his organization and others like it played a key role in reducing the social and environmental impacts of projects funded by multilateral development banks.
Without the Foundation’s support, Dobson said, “We wouldn’t have information policy, we wouldn’t have accountability mechanisms, and we wouldn’t have environmental impact assessments. We would have an entirely different project development world than we have now.”