Last week, the Independent Redress Mechanism (IRM) and the Independent Integrity Unit (IIU) hosted a joint regional capacity building and outreach workshop for South and Southeast Asia Direct Access Entities (DAEs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). The workshop took place from 8-11 April in Hanoi, Vietnam.

At the workshop, there were 29 DAE participants and 12 CSO participants. The DAEs came from 19 different organisations and 12 different countries. One International Accredited Entity, the Luxembourg Development Cooperation Agency, also participated with a member of their team based in Vietnam. These participants all work on grievance redress and/or integrity issues within their organisations.

For the first 2.5 days, the participants engaged with IRM on how to establish and operate a grievance redress mechanism and how to handle complaints. CSOs also learned about the GCF’s requirements around grievance redress and how the larger ecosystem can help address complaints by individuals and communities who may be negatively affected by GCF projects.  

During the IIU sessions on the final 1.5 days, IIU staff led a deep dive on obligations under GCF integrity policies, strategies to set up and strengthen the integrity function with DAEs, and practices to grow integrity knowledge among civil society groups.

This is the third regional workshop that IRM and IIU have jointly hosted. The first took place in 2023 in Kigali, Rwanda, and the second was held in 2023 in Casablanca, Morocco. In each, IRM and IIU engaged with regional DAEs and CSOs.