Abstract
Society is currently experiencing an international crisis of ever-increasing involuntary displacement. The common and well publicized drivers of this potentially devastating occurrence include internal conflict, natural disasters, and politics. However, the international development agenda, driven by governments and the private sector, and enabled by multi-national, bi-lateral, and private financial institutions such as the World Bank, is further exacerbating and compounding and already dire situation. While numerous development projects, such as roads and agriculture, can lead to varying degrees of displacement, it is the construction of large hydropower dams, and the management of large-scale displacement associated with these projects, that epitomizes the juxtaposed relationship between development, profits, and human rights. The surge in development funding over the past four decades, including for the construction of hydropower projects, has largely been driven by organizations such as the World Bank Group. It is the social atrocities emanating from these very hydropower projects that led to the development of the first formal and structured management approaches in an attempt to mitigate these impacts. Almost half a century later, we have seen a multitude of resettlement policies, procedures and standards developed and implemented by organizations such as the International Finance Corporation and the African Development Bank. While these policies and approaches are well informed and intentioned, they have largely failed to manage all manifestations of impact for all affected people in the long and short term. While there is a significant body of literature supporting this criticism, the fundamental shortfalls of existing resettlement policies and procedures include a predominantly top-down approach, lack of flexibility and contextuality, and limited project equity for directly affected people. When analysing existing resettlement policies and standards it is apparent that they are all structured in a very similar manner and built on the foundation of four core themes, or management areas, namely land and tenure, compensation, participation, and livelihood restoration. In essence, the premise is that if each of these areas is appropriately managed, the result should be a sustainable and acceptable resettlement process. However, by unpacking and critically assessing each of these four cross-cutting themes it is apparent that while well intentioned, they each have significant limitations. These shortfalls are evident in several case studies of large hydropower projects, including Kariba and Cahorra Bassa. This leads to the fundamental question – if existing resettlement policies in their current guise are not consistently resulting in sustainable outcomes, is there a solution to what is a highly dynamic, subjective, and complex topic? The reality is it is unlikely that large organisations such as the World Bank are going to radically change their approach to resettlement, therefore, the more practical approach would be to work within their existing frameworks. This is where the enhanced promotion and exploration of a monetary benefit sharing model should be adopted. Existing resettlement standards and polices touch on the topic at a high and non-committal level, however, particularly in a hydropower context, the notion of ensuring directly affected people are provided with equity in a project seems logical and may help promote an enhanced bottom-up an inclusive approach. It is recognized the monetary benefit sharing does have its own complexities and limitations; however, development organisations need to exert their significant leverage to ensure the feasibility of the approach is explored on every project as a matter of policy.
M.A. (Development Studies)