全球视野 | 比起捐赠一笔巨大的善款，还需要关注盖茨基金会的问责制度是否完善？

In his recent annual letter, Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, announced that the organization would spend a record $8.3 billion to respond to the compounding crises of war, climate change, stumbling economies, and infectious disease. Unfortunately, this increased spending has not been accompanied by an increased commitment to accountability. 

比尔及梅林达·盖茨基金会首席执行官马克·苏兹曼在其最近的年度信函中宣布，该组织将花费创纪录的83亿美元来应对战争、气候变化、步履蹒跚的经济和传染病等复杂危机。不幸的是，在增加支出的同时，盖茨基金会并没有增加对问责制的承诺。 

Despite its growing role in setting the global development agenda, the Gates Foundation seems intent on proceeding without the crucial environmental and social safeguards and public-accountability mechanisms expected of the development institutions that traditionally lead such work. 

尽管盖茨基金会在制定全球开发议程方面的作用越来越大，但它似乎打算在没有关键的环境社会保障措施，以及开发机构（传统上领导这类工作的组织）应有的公共问责机制的情况下开展工作。 

While the foundation has taken some recent strides toward greater accountability — including expanding its board of directors and creating a channel through which people can report fraudulent use of the Gates Foundation name — those efforts don’t go nearly far enough. 

虽然该基金会最近在加强问责制方面取得了一些进展：包括扩大其董事会，并创建了一个举报渠道。人们可以通过该渠道举报利用盖茨基金会的名义来进行的欺诈行为。但这些努力还远远不够。 

Most significantly, the foundation lacks a formal accountability system that allows people and communities to raise concerns about and seek remedy for unintended adverse environmental and social consequences. Until the Gates Foundation — the nation’s largest with more than $53 billion in assets — commits to operating with these basic standards of accountability, it will have little understanding of the net impact of its investments and will risk causing real harm. It will also continue to be a poor model for other grant makers engaged in international development work. 

最重要的是，该基金会缺乏一个正式的问责制度。一个正式的问责制度可以使人们和社区能够对意料之外的不良环境和社会后果，提出关切并寻求补救措施。盖茨基金会是美国最大的基金会，拥有超过530亿美元的资产，除非它承诺按照这些基本的问责标准运作，否则它将对它的投资的净影响力知之甚少，并有可能造成真正的伤害。对于其他从事国际开发工作的资助者来说，盖茨基金会也将继续成为一个糟糕的模式样本。 

In his annual letter, Suzman heralded the upsides to the foundation’s footprint, scope, and sheer size of its philanthropic investments, writing that it is well positioned to make “high-risk bets on novel solutions” to global problems because it is liberated from funding limitations experienced by nongovernmental organizations, the profit incentives of corporations, and the rigid timelines on governments to achieve results. 

在他的年度信件中，苏兹曼赞扬了该基金会的足迹、范围和其巨大规模的慈善投资所带来的好处。苏兹曼写道，该基金会处于有利地位，可以对全球问题的“新型解决方案进行高风险投注”。因为盖茨基金会摆脱了非政府组织的资金限制、企业的利润驱动以及政府的严格时间表限制，从而取得了成果。 

Notably absent from Suzman’s list are strong environmental and social commitments and policies to hold the foundation accountable to the people and planet it affects. Suzman’s letter is an example of a troubling trend: Private finance, including foundations and social-impact investors, believe they are successful because they aren’t limited by bureaucratic red tape. What they fail to recognize is the value of that bureaucracy in safeguarding the people and communities where investments flow. 

值得注意的是，在苏兹曼的名单中没有强有力的环境和社会承诺，也没有让基金会对其影响的人们和地球负责的政策。苏兹曼的年信是一个令人不安的趋势的例子：包括基金会和社会影响力投资者在内的私人金融机构认为，他们之所以成功，是因为他们不受官僚作风的限制。但他们没有认识到，官僚机构在保护投资所涉及的人们和社区方面的价值。

With the Gates Foundation’s substantial influence comes substantial responsibility, especially given that it has received criticism for the adverse effects of several of its investments, including agribusiness and climate finance projects. For example, civil-society organizations have criticized the foundation’s agriculture interventions in Africa as subsidizing large industrial initiatives to the detriment of traditional agroecological farming practices and the food sovereignty of small farm communities. Without local input and independent oversight, projects in these and other areas can have devastating consequences, including physical or economic displacement, on the very communities they aim to help. 

随着盖茨基金会的巨大影响力而来的是重大责任，特别是考虑到基金会因其几项投资的不利影响而受到的批评，包括农业综合企业和气候融资项目。例如，民间社会组织批评该基金会在非洲的农业干预措施，是对大型工业项目的补贴，损害了传统农业生态耕作方式和小型农场社区的粮食主权。如果没有地方的投入和独立的监督，这些地区和其他地区的项目，可能会对其旨在帮助的社区产生破坏性的后果，包括物质或经济上的流离失所。 

Development work is difficult, and unintended harm can occur even when safeguards are in place. Shockingly, the Gates Foundation hasn’t learned that lesson from other development finance actors. Most of the major multilateral banks, many development financial institutions, some private banks and investors, and some foundations have accountability mechanisms that allow individuals, communities, or other stakeholders to raise concerns and seek remedy for environmental and human-rights abuses. 

开发工作是困难的，即使有保障措施，也会出现意外的伤害。令人震惊的是，盖茨基金会还没有从其他开发金融机构那里学到这个教训。大多数的主要多边银行、许多开发金融机构、一些私人银行和投资者以及一些基金会都有问责机制，允许个人、社区或其他利益相关方对侵犯环境和人权的行为提出关切，并寻求补救措施。 

Such mechanisms are critical to effective philanthropy, especially when charitable funds involve direct interventions into the lives and livelihoods of people and the places they dwell. For example, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund, created an independent ombudsperson office to strengthen the human-rights component of its conservation projects. This accountability effort affirms the group’s respect for the rights of local and Indigenous communities, acts as a guardrail against wrong-doing, and helps ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of its work. 

这种机制对有效慈善至关重要，特别是当慈善基金涉及对人们及其居住地的生活和生计进行直接干预时。例如，世界自然基金会WWF（前身为世界野生生物基金会），创建了一个独立的监察员办公室，以加强其保护项目中的人权部分。这种问责制的工作肯定了该组织对当地和原住民社区的权利的尊重，充当了防止不当行为的屏障，并有助于确保其工作的有效性和可持续性。 

The Accountability Console, which tracks complaints filed to the independent accountability mechanisms, has identified more than 1,600 complaints involving major development finance institutions during the past nearly three decades. Complaints have included issues such as seizing land without adequate compensation, sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment of workers, and retaliation against those who sound an alarm about risks and harm. These accountability systems allow investors to hear directly from the people they aim to help and respond to concerns quickly and effectively. 

Accountability Console追踪向独立问责机制提出的投诉。在过去近三十年中，Accountability Console已发现1600多起涉及主要开发金融机构的投诉。投诉涉及的问题包括：在没有适当补偿的情况下征用土地、性剥削、虐待和骚扰工人，以及对那些发出风险和伤害警报的人进行报复。这些问责制度使投资者能够直接听取他们希望帮助的人的意见，并迅速有效地回应他们的关切。 

They also enforce internal compliance. Strong accountability systems not only bring together both sides to address harms, but also include a compliance review to ensure that the organization did not violate its own environmental, social, or other ethical standards, and that processes are in place to reduce the risk of future problems. 

Accountability Console还执行内部合规机制。强有力的问责制度不仅能将双方聚集在一起解决危害，而且还包括合规性审查，以确保组织没有违反其自身的环境、社会或其他道德标准，并确保有程序来减少未来出现问题的风险。 

Fortunately for the Gates Foundation, decades of experience and research into accountability practices have produced guidelines that the foundation can follow to establish its own system. 

对盖茨基金会来说，幸运的是，数十年的经验和对问责实践的研究已经产生了指导方针，基金会可以遵循这些指导方针来建立自己的制度。

The most effective accountability efforts function independently from operational staff and report to the highest levels of the organization — typically the board of directors. They also have dedicated staff to conduct outreach with affected communities and to handle any complaints. This could involve facilitating a dialogue between parties or conducting an independent investigation. Importantly, the accountability staff can make recommendations for fully remedying harms and guarding against more. 

最有效的问责工作是独立于业务工作人员，并向组织的最高层，通常是董事会报告。他们也有专门的工作人员与受影响的社区进行联系，并处理任何投诉。这可能涉及到促进各方之间的对话，或进行独立调查。重要的是，问责工作人员可以为全面补救伤害和防止更多伤害提出建议。 

Creating an accountability mechanism is an obvious and important step to guarantee that the vast resources of the Gates Foundation are put to their best and highest purpose and do not hurt or create new challenges for the communities it seeks to help. By embracing accountability as an essential condition for successful philanthropy, the foundation would set an example for all grant makers who want their activities to achieve their intended result: changing lives for the better. 

建立问责机制显然是重要的一步，可以保证盖茨基金会的大量资源被用于最佳和最高的目的，而不会伤害它试图帮助的社区，也不会给它们带来新的挑战。通过将问责制度作为成功慈善的必要条件，该基金会将为所有希望其活动达到预期效果的资助者树立一个榜样：让生活变得更好。