Land Access And Resettlement

This book is an up-to-date, accessible and practical guide on how to optimally plan for, implement and review land access and resettlement. It provides step-by-step information on how to avoid pitfalls, ensure that best practice is being employed and the correct standards are being applied. With useful real-life examples of when projects have gone well and when they haven't, the book is based on the main lessons that have been learned on-the-ground over the past decade. Natural resource projects can have considerable impacts on local communities, chiefly due to the need to acquire large areas of land. When projects are located in developing and middle income economies, the impacts are most keenly felt, as it often requires displacement of large rural populations, with predominately land-based livelihoods. The authors have planned, implemented and reviewed over 50 land access and resettlement projects in over 30 countries internationally, and conducted benchmarking exercises on a further 60 projects. This experience provides the basis for the book. The book guides the reader through the different stages of preparing for a land resettlement project. Land Access and Resettlement is a key social risk for the natural resources sector, particularly the mining, oil and gas industries, who are operating in a context of increased awareness and regulation regarding the potential social impacts of their activities. At the same time, companies increasingly appreciate the business case for ‘getting social right’. This book provides a practical road map to corporate leaders, project managers, practitioners, academia, government and civil society for practically planning and implementing successful land access and resettlement, and creating win-win outcomes for companies and communities.

Involuntary Resettlement Sourcebook: Planning and Implementation in Development Projects clarifies many policy and technical issues that confront resettlement policymakers and practitioners. It provides guidance on resettlement design, implementation, and monitoring, and it discusses resettlement issues particular to development projects in different sectors, such as urban development, natural resource management, and the building of dams. The sourcebook will be useful to a wide range of stakeholders. Its primary audience is resettlement practitioners, who have a role in the actual design, implementation, and evaluation of resettlement programs. The sourcebook will also be of interest to policymakers and project decision makers.

Expansion and development of urban areas require acquisition of land, which, in turn, often requires physical relocation of people who own or occupy this land. Land acquisition and resettlement may also be required to improve the lives of the more than 1 billion people who currently live in slums around the world, most of them in developing countries. Therefore, any effort to embark on significant, sustainable urban development needs to ensure that there are adequate processes for land acquisition and, so that resettlement does not become a constraint to much needed urban development. Planners, policy makers and social scientists can try to implement urban development programs in a way that make people who lose their land, houses or livelihoods become equal partners in the development process. The combination of the high price of urban land, presence of creative individuals in close proximity in urban areas, and the ability of urban space to generate innovative solutions, can help convert urban resettlement into a development opportunity for all. The report illustrates how urban resettlement can become a development opportunity. The Mumbai example shows how the private sector can play a key role, to unleash the potential created by high-value land to provide sustainable housing solutions to those adversely affected, at no cost to the government or the resettlers. Examples from Morocco and Pakistan show how well designed and implemented, citizen-driven resettlement can result in enhanced skills and livelihoods, and can promote overall sustainable urban development. The Mauritania example demonstrates how collective approaches with strong community participation can help address difficult challenges related to housing. The Brazil case shows how resettlement practices with demonstrated, strongly positive outcomes and contributions to urban development can influence governments to incorporate them into their own laws and regulations, helping millions of affected people to benefit from them.

Annex 3. Opening speech.

A crucial issue that confronts development in South Asia is how to build a better life for people displaced by infrastructure development projects. This book comprises recent displacement and resettlement case studies conducted by eight anthropologists in South Asia. Each contributor wrote around the key theme of the book: Is involuntary resettlement a development opportunity for those displaced by development interventions? In this book, "resettlement" carries a broader meaning to include physical and economic displacement, restricted access to public land such as forests and parks, relocation, income rehabilitation, and self-relocation. The book demonstrates that despite significant progress in national policies, laws, and regulations, their application still requires more commitment, adequate resources, and better supervision.

The problem of escalating population displacement demands global attention and country co-ordination. This book investigates the particular issue of development-induced displacement, whereby land is seized or restricted by the state for the purposes of development projects. Those displaced by these schemes often risk losses to their homes, livelihoods, food security, and socio-cultural support; for which they are rarely fully compensated. Bringing together 22 specialist researchers and practitioners from across the globe, this book provides a much-needed independent analysis of country frameworks for development-induced displacement spanning Asia, Africa, Central and South America. As global competition for land increases, public and private sector lenders are lightening their social safeguards, shifting the oversight for protecting the displaced to national law and regulations. This raises a central question: Do countries have effective ways of addressing the risks and lost opportunities for their people who are displaced? While many countries remain impervious to the problem, the book also shines a light on the few who are pioneering new legislation and strategies, intended to address questions such as: should the social costs to those displaced help determine whether a project meets the public interest and merits financing? Does the modern state need powers of eminent domain? How can country laws, systems, institutions and negotiations be reformed to protect citizens better against disempowering public and private sector development displacement? This book will interest those working on forced and voluntary migration, property and expropriation law, human rights, environmental and social impact assessment, internal and refugee displacement from conflicts, environment change, disasters and development.

Professionals from, or retired from, the World Bank take six dam projects as case studies on the disruption caused by large-scale engineering projects the Bank funds. They evaluate the mitigation efforts after the Bank's resettlement guidelines had been implemented in projects in India, Thailand, Togo, China, Indonesia, and Brazil. They find satisfactory results, or at least trends, in compensation for the acquired land, relocation, infrastructure, and services. They find less success in the often harsh drop of income by the refugees, and considerable dissatisfaction among the people displaced. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Each year millions of people are displaced from their homes and lands. While international environmental and social performance standards on land access and involuntary resettlement exist, no framework supporting livelihood restoration has been developed. This book provides a framework that will help improve practice for those who are involved in resettlement projects and, crucially, improve the outcomes for the resettlement-affected households and communities. Evidence from the implementation of public- and private-sector-led resettlement projects indicates that livelihood restoration is a persistent shortcoming, if not failure, across these projects. This book addresses this issue by re-characterising the ‘livelihood restoration’ objective as ‘livelihood re-establishment and development’ and proposes a framework for the entire resettlement process that puts livelihood considerations first. The framework enables proactive identification of the potential livelihood challenges associated with each step of the resettlement process (design, planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation), as well as the opportunities that resettlement, project development and induced economic growth create. This book is essential reading for experts in social impact assessment, resettlement specialists, planners, administrators, non-governmental and civil society organisations and students of development studies and social policy.