Better Resettlement Hari Mohan Mathur Agenda Introduction 1 - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Social Impact Assessment A Tool for Planning Better Resettlement

Hari Mohan Mathur

Agenda

1

Introduction

2

Causes and Types of Social Impacts

3

Steps in Conducting SIA

4

Principles of Good Practice

5

Sources of SIA Information and Methods of Data Collection

6

Identification and Assessment of Social Impacts

7

Community Involvement in SIA

8

Preparing a SIA Report

9

Impact Mitigation

1

Introduction

Aims and Objectives of SAI

 Analyze how proposals affect people  Identify and mitigate adverse impacts  Enhance benefits  Help manage change

What is Social Impact Assessment?

 It is the process of assessing, in advance, the social

impacts likely to follow from a project proposal

 It is an attempt to quantify those impacts  It alerts the planners to understand the potential

consequences of a proposed project

 It is a powerful tool allowing decision makers to

initiate steps necessary to prevent/contain harmful potential impacts

Why Do Social Impact Assessment?

 Helps in identifying potential impacts essential for

planning purposes

 Helps in identifying groups likely to be adversely

affected

 Helps in designing projects that neutralize/soften

adverse impacts

 Helps in designing projects that enhance positive

impacts

 SIA is a common requirement of the planning

process

Why Do Social Impact Assessment

(contd)

 Provides opportunity to explain project’s objectives to

affected groups

 Provides affected people an avenue to express their

views

 Helps in allaying fears and winning trust of affected

people

 Helps people identify development opportunities

from the project

 Lowers projects costs by timely actions  Reduces delays in projects clearance

2

Causes and Types of Social Impacts

What Are Social Impacts?

 Social impacts are consequences to human

populations of any public/private actions

 These include changes in ways they live, work, play,

• rganize to meet their needs

 Changes may effect: employment, production, way

• f life, culture, community, political systems,

property, norms, values, beliefs, fears, aspirations

 These impacts can be positive or negative  In short, social impact is a significant improvement or

deterioration in wellbeing

What are Social Impacts? (contd)

 Different groups experience impacts differently  Some win, some lose  Impacts severe for vulnerable groups (tribal people,

women)

 Impacts differ from project to project (dams, urban

projects, place to place)

Illustrative List of Impacts

Social/Cultural

 Break-up of community cohesion  Disintegration of social support systems  Disruption of women’s economic activities  Loss of time-honoured sacred places of worship  Loss of archeological sites and other cultural

property

Illustrative List of Impacts

Economic

 Loss of agricultural lands, tress, wells  Loss of dwellings and other farm buildings  Loss of access to common property resources  Loss of shops, commercial buildings  Loss of businesses/jobs  Overall reduction in income due to above losses

Illustrative List of Impacts

Public Infrastructure and services

 Government office buildings  School buildings  Hospitals  Roads  Street lighting

3

Steps in Conducting Social Impact Assessment

The SIA Process

 Screening: decide if and what level SIA is required  Scoping: identify the key social issues  Impact analysis: predict the impacts of a proposal

and evaluate their significance

 Mitigation: plan action to prevent, reduce or

compensate for adverse impacts

The SIA Process (contd)

 Reporting: provide the information for use in

decision-making

 Review: check the quality of the SIA report  Decision making: approve, reject the proposal or

approve conditionally

 Follow up: monitor, manage impacts  Public involvement: inform and consult with

stakeholders

Steps in Conducting Social Impact Assessment

 Define the impact area  Identify information/data requirements and their

sources

 Involve all affected stakeholders  Conduct screening

Steps in Conducting Social Impact Assessment (contd)

 Carry out scoping in the field  Prepare a socioeconomic profile of baseline

condition

 Survey of host population  Identify and assess the impacts  Develop a mitigation plan

4

Principles of Good Practice

Principles of Good Practice

 Involve the diverse public  Analyze impact equity  Focus the assessment  Identify methods and assumptions and define

significance

Principles of Good Practice (contd)

 Provide feedback on social impacts to project

planner

 Use SIA practitioners  Establish monitoring and mitigation programmes  Identify data sources  Plan for gaps in data

5

Sources of SIA Information and Methods of Data Collection

Sources of SIA Information

 SIA uses both secondary and primary data  Secondary sources include: data on the proposal,

census and vital statistics, other documents

 Primary sources include: project-specific survey and

field research

 SIA uses both quantitative and qualitative methods

Secondary Sources

 Project report and related documents  Government census data  Land records  Published literature on the project area and its

people

Secondary Sources (contd)

 Secondary data no substitute for project-specific

surveys

 Use primary data: quantitative and qualitative  Include relevant data gathered directly from the field  Various other surveys, studies

Methods and Tools Quantitative Methods

 Land acquisition survey  Census survey  Socioeconomic survey

Methods and Tools Qualitative Methods

 Key informant interviews  Rapid rural appraisals  Focus group discussions (FGDs)  Public hearing

6

Identification and Assessment of Social Impacts

Identifying and Assessing Social Impacts

 The first task in resettlement planning is to identify

project’s adverse impacts

 Identify all people affected by project  Understand impacts on livelihoods of those affected

Identifying and Assessing Social Impacts (contd)

 Describe project impacts on different groups  Quantify impacts as far as possible (some are not

quantifiable)

 Involve affected groups in ranking impacts according

to their severity

7

Community Involvement in SIA

Purpose and Objective of Public Involvement

 Informing stakeholders  Obtaining information on local socio-economic

conditions

 Gaining their views, concerns  Winning public trust  Incorporating people’s perspective in

decision making

 Making decision making transparent and

accountable

 Reducing conflict

Public Involvement

 Levels of public involvement  Key stakeholders  Principles of public involvement  Public involvement in key stages of the SIA process

Principles of Public Involvement

 Inclusive: involves all stakeholders  Open and Transparent: proposal is easily

understood

 Relevant: focused on issues that matter  Fair: conducted without bias towards any group  Responsive: to stakeholder concerns and needs  Builds confidence and trust

Developing a Public Involvement Programme

 Determining the scope of involvement  Identifying affected groups and other stakeholders  Selecting techniques relevant to local situation  Providing feedback to stakeholders

8

Preparing a SIA Report

Format of a SIA Report

 A report on SIA required for decision making by

project proponent

 Prepare a formal report for submission to the

sponsoring authority after completion of the social impact assessment

 Provide a brief executive summary

Format of a SIA Report (contd)

 Divide the report into distinct sections  Introduction, methodology used, likely impacts,

recommendations, mitigation measures

 Provide recommendations with full justification  Share the report widely

9

IMPACT MITIGATION

Mitigating Adverse Impacts

 Give priority to avoid social impacts  Minimize them as far as practicable  Identify mitigation measures for each impact  Customize them to the different affected groups  Ensure impacts are not borne disproportionately by

any group

Mitigating Adverse Impacts (contd)

 No one should be worse off than before  Treat relocation/resettlement as a special case  Livelihoods of those displaced should be improved  Enhance benefits for local people through Job

training and development packages

Thank You

Hari Mohan Mathur

1

Climate Change (CC) Impacts will be severe

 Climate change (CC) impacts in India will be

severe.

 Agriculture (60 percent depend on it), melting of

glaciers

 More floods, droughts will affect food problem

and water security

 Threats to cities on coastline due to rise in sea

levels

2

 Many places now livable will be unfit for living

due to climate change

 People will be displaced and forced to relocate to

safer places

 This is happening already (In India, Sunderbans,

for example)

 Estimates of how many to relocate not known, but

problem is urgent

3

Resettlement as Adaptation Response

 IPCC (1900) first to identify relocation as a major

consequence of CC

 Resettlement as adaptation gained much

acceptance since (UN 2010)

 This is the only option for Kiribati and other

countries

 Resettlement not an easy way out  Resettlement essentially disruptive, human rights

abuses abound

 Still this remains an option

4

Humanitarian Agencies Lack Relocation Expertise

 Humanitarian agencies expertise can protect

human rights

 But that is not all  Need is to find land in a new pace, rebuild

relocated lives

 No expertise in UNHCR, and other agencies  They lack experience enough in planning

relocation

5

The Required Experience

 Much relevant resettlement experience exists  It exists in development agencies - international

as well as national

 Social science researchers too have contributed to

this expertise

6

Advantage with Resettlement Planners

 Resettlement planners better placed than others  They can foresee displacement ‘happening’ before

it starts

 Gives time to plan and execute it in advance with

assured budget

 But this experience relevant for slow-onset CC,

not sudden kind

7

Problems with Resettlement

 Resettlement remains a neglected issue  Tendency to ignore it until it assumes crisis

proportions

 Policies/Laws announced when protests turn

unmanageable

 Projects operate without any trained staff  No top-level commitment

8

Issues with Safeguard Policies (World Bank)

 According to policy standard of living should go

up, not down

 But this hardly happens  Even Bank’s own studies report no significant

improvement

 In a hurry to disburse loan, Bank often ignores its

• wn guidelines

 Inadequate accountability for noncompliance

9

Issues with Safeguard Policies in India

 Until recently no resettlement policy In India  SIA became mandatory in 2007 policy  Promised guidelines on conducting SIA not

issued

 Social impacts/ impoverishment risks remain

largely identified

 Policy has remained only on paper

10

Issues with Resettlement Planning

 Resettlement planning given low priority in

• verall project design

 Time/resources allocated for planning limited  Hence planning done without basic information

(on impacts/risks)

 Resettlement plans prepared hurriedly  Emphasis on relocating people, not resettling

them

11

Issues with Resettlement Costs and Budget

 Resettlement costs a fraction of project cost (one

percent for a dam)

 Even substantial increase has no effect on project

viability

 Yet, requirements for resettlement costs often

underestimated

 For fear that a realistic estimate may jeopardize

project approval

 But resettlement not possible without adequate

budget

12

Issues with Finding Land

 Land is scarce and its demand is insatiable  Acquiring land now a major challenge for

development projects

 Climate change relocation faces a similar

challenge

 Host populations unwilling to yield even an inch

• f land

 Yet, resettlement cannot be carried out without

land

13

Issues with Livelihoods

 One consequence of resettlement is the loss of

livelihood

 Rebuilding livelihoods remains an

insurmountable job

 New areas may not offer the familiar livelihood

• pportunities

 It is hard to shift to new kind of economic

pursuits

14

‘Good Practices’ in Resettlement

 Resettlement is known more for its failed projects  This probably reflects a certain bias among

researchers

 “Historically, social scientists have been much

better at recording development’s tragedies than preventing them” (Cernea 1991:188).

 But resettlement need not always end in disaster  There have also been encouraging outcomes, as

follows

15

Example 1: The Mahi Bajaj Sagar Dam (India)

 The Dam-affected People of Khandu village resettled

close to a large district hqs town, Banswara, and the site given New Khandu as its name. The proximity to an urban center opened before them new

• pportunities to improve their lives: jobs, business
• pportunities, education, better civic amenities,

Entire village moved as a group, so the social network has remained intact. New Khandu is now a thriving

• community. It is important to note that Khandu was

the home village of then Chief Minister who appointed a senior official to look after resettlement

• n this project.

16

Example 1. (Continued) Factors that contributed to success include:

 Top level commitment  Strengthened Institutional set-up  People moved close to a large town that offered

better opportunities for jobs, business, education and other civic services

 Sharp rise in urban property prices giving the

people a sense of affluence

 Entire village moved as a social group, retaining

its original name Khandu

17

Example 2: Light Rail Transit 3Terminal, Metropolitan Manila (Philippines)

 The project involved the resettlement of 4,053 families

from a site in Quezon City to make space for the LRT

• Terminal. These residents had been squatting on the
• land. An Interagency Committee to manage

resettlement and it worked with locally elected community based organizations (CBOs). The CBO leaders were able to find an affordable site which was sufficiently close to the original community, and which had good transport links. The involvement of many groups in decision-making process caused delays, but it produced a negotiated compensation package and relocation process that the affected groups found satisfactory.

18

Example 2 (Continued): Factors that contributed to successful relocation include:

 Proper advance planning  Relocation job entrusted to a special

representative committee

 Extensive consultations with the affected people

through local CBOs

 Site selected was close to the original community

with good transport connections

19

Example 3: Resettlement of People Affected by HZL (India)

 In Rampura, the acquisition of land for an open-

pit mine presented no problems, because by local market standards compensation offers by HZL were highly attractive. The issues related to resettlement, however, turned out to be more

• complex. In carrying out resettlement, HZL

followed ODA practices: appointed a sociologist to conduct SIA and a resettlement plan made on this basis proved helpful in moving people to the new location in a relatively smooth manner. As the sociological research brought out, the factors that facilitated resettlement included:

20

Example 3 (Continued): Factors that contributed to successful relocation include:

 HZL followed international practices in carrying out

resettlement

 The planning process began with social impact

assessment and the active participation of affected people in the process

 Relocation site designed to reflect the original

settlement pattern and given the name New Rampura

 Generous compensation package including jobs,

which ensured that as a result of resettlement the affected people ended up better off than before

 Affected groups relocated close from their original

village

21

Implications for Climate Change

 Adopt Policies and Laws  Avoid/Reduce Resettlement  Proceed with a Well-prepared Resettlement Plan  Ensure that Plan has Adequate Budget Provision  Acquire Land for Resettlement

22

Implications for Climate Change (continued)

 Adopt Policies and Laws  Avoid/Reduce Resettlement  Proceed with a Well-prepared Resettlement Plan  Ensure that Plan has Adequate Budget Provision  Acquire Land for Resettlement

23

Implications for Climate Change (Slow-

• nset Events)

 Rebuild Livelihoods  Focus on Development in Resettlement  Move People as a Group  Involve All in Resettlement Process including

Host Communities

 Organize Training to Strengthen Management

Capacity

 Commitment to Resettlement

24

When should Affected People be Relocated?

 Best Option is Not to Relocate and let live people

where they are

 Relocation should begin once all other adaptation

• ptions fail

 Governments don’t even consider relocation as an

• ption

 But planning should begin early to avoid chaos

later

 Last-minute rush will make things worse for the

affected people

25

THANK YOU

26