Ensuring AIIB’s civil society engagement legacy continues under the next President

December 10, 2025

Mr. Jin Liqun  

President  

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)Beijing, People’s Republic of China 

Re: Ensuring AIIB’s civil society engagement legacy continues under the next President 

Dear President Jin,

On behalf of the Forum network, along with our partner organisations and communities that have engaged with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) since its inception, we are writing to express our appreciation for the space you have helped create for dialogue between AIIB and civil society. We would also like to respectfully seek your support in ensuring that this legacy is carried forward and strengthened by the Bank’s next President in the years to come.

Over the years, from the early Annual Meetings through the virtual and hybrid formats of 2020–2023, civil society organisations and project-affected communities have repeatedly raised concerns with AIIB on issues such as gender, safeguards, energy policy, information disclosure, accountability, and civic space. While we have often been critical and direct in highlighting these issues, we recognise that under your leadership, AIIB has taken meaningful steps to engage with these concerns: 

• Convening management–CSO dialogues around the Annual Meetings

• Meeting with CSOs to discuss the AIIB project and policy issues directly with you around the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings

• Allocating time for exchanges with departments like the Compliance, Effectiveness, and Integrity Unit (CEIU), and 

• Being open to receiving and acknowledging civil society correspondence on the Environmental and Social Framework, the Energy Sector Strategy, the Gender Action Plan, and the design of the Project-affected People’s Mechanism.

Although these spaces have not always been sufficient and there remains a long way to go before engagement can be considered fully “meaningful” for communities on the frontline of AIIB-backed projects, it is significant from our perspective as longstanding critics and advocacy groups engaging multilateral development banks that there is a willingness, during your presidency, to sit in the same room—whether physically or virtually—and hear uncomfortable truths directly from affected persons and their allies.

Looking ahead to a presidential transition in 2026, we kindly request that you, as the current President, formally and publicly recommend that civil society engagement be recognised as a core pillar of the Bank’s governance culture, not just as an optional add-on dependent on individual leadership.

Specifically, we respectfully recommend that you consider the following steps-

• Affirm to the Board of Governors and Board of Directors—in writing—that structured engagement with civil society and project-affected communities is essential to AIIB’s legitimacy, effectiveness, and risk management. This affirmation could include a clear expectation that future Presidents will maintain and strengthen regular high-level dialogues with CSOs before and during Annual Meetings.

• Recommend that the Terms of Reference and selection criteria for the next President explicitly include a commitment to meaningful civil society engagement. A President who values listening to frontline voices and views CSOs as partners in accountability—rather than adversaries—will be better positioned to guide AIIB through increasingly complex social, environmental, and geopolitical challenges.

• Encourage AIIB Management to institutionalize—not just for the duration of your term but for the long term—robust and reliable channels for engagement with CSOs and affected communities, both formal and informal. This could include: establishing at least one dedicated management–CSO dialogue at every Annual Meeting; integrating civil society–led thematic panels into the official program; facilitating project-level meetings between AIIB staff and directly affected communities; and ensuring safe participation, interpretation, hybrid formats, and accessible registration processes so that individuals with limited resources, connectivity, or language proficiency are not excluded.

• Emphasise that engagement must extend beyond events and include meaningful follow-up. We would welcome your support in reinforcing that management and project teams should respond to inputs from CSOs and communities in a timely and substantive manner throughout the year, and that the Project-affected People’s Mechanism becomes and remains secure, accessible, independent, and trusted by those seeking remedies.

This request is offered in the spirit of the constructive dialogue that has characterised many of our exchanges under your leadership. While we have consistently raised concerns about AIIB’s exposure to fossil fuels, its financial intermediary lending, and gaps in safeguards implementation, as well as access to information, we also recognise the value of maintaining open channels for honest discussion. Such dialogue—even when viewpoints diverge—is essential for an institution to learn from experience, address shortcomings, and prevent future harms to people and ecosystems.

For the countless communities across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Arab region living with the impacts of large infrastructure and financial sector projects, whether AIIB’s next President continues this engagement is not merely a procedural matter. It is about whether people’s voices will be included in decisions affecting their rights, land, livelihoods, and futures.

We therefore encourage you, President Jin, to use this transitional moment to signal clearly to your successor and to AIIB’s shareholders that meaningful dialogue with civil society and affected communities is not merely consistent with AIIB’s vision of “lean, clean, and green” development—it is fundamental to achieving it.

We sincerely thank you for the dialogue opportunities provided during your tenure, and we hope to see this commitment not only continued but strengthened—deeper, broader, and more closely connected to those most affected by AIIB’s investments.

With respect,

Rayyan Hassan

Executive Director

NGO Forum on ADB

Endorsed by the following organizations:

350 Pilipinas, Philippines

AbibiNsroma Foundation, Ghana

Accountability Counsel, International

Adarsha Samajik Progoti Sangstha, Bangladesh

African Law Foundation (AFRILAW), Nigeria

Aksi! for gender, social, and ecological justice, Indonesia

Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), Philippines

Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), Regional, Asia

Bank Climate Advocates, United States / International

Bantay Kita, Inc., Philippines

BRICS Feminist Watch, Global

Buliisa Initiative for Rural Development Organisation (BIRUDO), Uganda

Centre for Community Mobilization and Support, Armenia

Centre for Environmental Justice, Sri Lanka

Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD), Mongolia

Community Resource Centre (CRC), Thailand

COMPPART Foundation for Justice and Peacebuilding, Nigeria

Consumer NGO, Mongolia

Dawei Probono Lawyer Network, Dawei, Tanintharyi, Myanmar

debtWATCH Indonesia, Indonesia/Southeast Asia

Equitable Cambodia, Cambodia

Fundación CAUCE: Cultura Ambiental - Causa Ecologista, Argentina

Fundeps, Argentina

Growthwatch, India

Inisiasi Masyarakat Adat (IMA), Indonesia

International Accountability Project, Global

Jubilee Australia Research Centre, Australia

Latinoamérica Sustentable, Latin America

Lumière Synergie pour le Développement, Sénégal

Mangrove Action Project, USA

Mekong Watch, Japan

Nash Vek PF, Kyrgyzstan

Onnochitra Foundation, Mymensingh, Bangladesh

Oyu Tolgoi Watch, Mongolia

Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, Pakistan

Peace Point Development Foundation - PPDF, Nigeria

Programme on Women's Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (PWESCR), Global South

Recourse, The Netherlands

Rivers without Boundaries Coalition, Mongolia

Sa Merdeka Foundation, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara - Indonesia

Society for Peace and Sustainable Development, Pakistan

Society of Development and Education for Small Households-SoDESH, Bangladesh

South Asia Just Transition Alliance (SAJTA), South Asia

Southern Initiatives, Dawei, Tanintharyi, Myanmar

Stiftung Asienhaus, Germany

Sustentarse, Chile

Urgewald, Germany

Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, Germany/Uzbekistan

Youth for Promotion of Development (YPD), Cameroon

AIIB_Civil-Society-Engagement_Letter-to-President-Jin.pdf

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