Involuntary resettlement: good practice, good intentions, betrayal

The article in today’s Sunday Times on a recent workshop organized by the Law and Society Trust highlights once again the troubling issue of urban evictions. The most telling sentence in this article  reads 

This trend of development tactics that marginalise the urban poor, as noted in the discussion is not challenged, due to the lack of interest by many politicians, the lack of awareness of rights by low-income dwellers but more importantly the apathy of the middle class of Colombo as these changes have minimal adverse effects on their livelihoods

 At a subsequent forum on the same issues last week, participants called for stronger involvement of political parties, highlighted the collusion of the World Bank’s Metro Colombo Urban Development Project in the evictions and discussed some good practice examples implemented by the Government of Sri Lanka.  All these ideas are important to take forward, but this blog will focus on the last of these, as it is my guess that neither the supporters nor detractors of the government are really aware of what comprises this  good practice.

the good practice example was presented by CEPA and focused on the implementation of the National Involuntary Resettlement Policy, by the Southern Transport Development Project.  The National Involuntary Resettlement Policy (NIRP) goes beyond the Land Acquisition Act, and takes into account not just acquisition (which is all the Land Acquisition Act deals with) but also the planning and the resettlement and restoration post acquisition. NIRP was formulated in 2000, and adopted by Cabinet in 2001.  It has, however, not become law.  

The NIRP  is based on twelve principles.  Overall it  encourages developers to avoid involuntary resettlement wherever policy and to plan resettlement as part of the development activity. It aims to:      

• provide land for land as an option
•   pay compensation at full replacement cost given promptly
•  assist affected households to reestablish their livelihoods and improve their quality of life
•   bear the cost of the resettlement process 
• provide common property resources, community and public services

The NIRP principles include also those that govern consultation of all stakeholders and the participation of affected people in decisions relating to resettlement and restoration.  It provides for:

•  participation of people affected  in decisions relating to the resettlement options such as compensation, selection of land etc.    
• just and fair treatment of vulnerable people and non title holders
• inclusion of local authorities in the process
•  a participatory process to integrate the affected people with their new host communities

The Southern Transport Development Project (STDP) calculated compensation at full replacement cost which meant including  the market value of the property  plus transaction costs.  Market value was defined as the government valuation plus anything additional that would have been required to purchase an equivalent  property on the market.  Transaction cost included documentation costs, transportation costs, temporary house rent and utility replacement costs.

STDP also provided land for land as one form of non monetary assistance, resettling 38% of displaced households at their request, in sites of 1-73 houses strong,  obtained and developed by the implementing entity, the  Road Development Authority.  The assistance was targeted at those who lost houses only, and was allocated at 20 perches for title holders, and 10 for non-title holders.   This principle overcame some of the challenges of land scarcity, and helped vulnerable households who could not  independently manage the process of displacement and relocation.

The STDP also implemented a consultation process that allowed for a discussion of the computation ‘replacement value’  for compensation, and provided affected families with a forum for airing their views and grievances.  Called LARC (the Land Acquisition and Resettlement Committee), this process was used  by almost all of the affected families.  Set up at the Divisional Secretary level,  LARC members included the Divisional Secretary, Valuation Officer, Surveying officer, RDA representative, Grama Niladari and  household members.   As one man (27) remarked in 2006,

LARC is a very good concept. If it had not been there we would have had no place to talk, අන්ත අසරණයි. Here we could negotiate to increase what we would get 

CEPA’s  research shows that in the case of all categories of displaced, the LARC negotiations enabled people to top their compensation to a more realistic figure. 

In a speech written in 2001, entitled Towards a National Policy on Involuntary Resettlement in Sri Lanka: a people centred perspective, His Excellency, Mahinda Rajapaksa, then the Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, said

Development therefore is not a simple matter of rupees and cents. It is also not a numbers game. It is not morally or ethically correct to say that in the interest of the ‘majority’ who will benefit from an infrastructure project, the sad and painful dislocation of a ‘minority’ of persons is justified and legitimate. Development is not predicated on majorities and minorities, on economic cost-benefit analyses alone or on segmented professionalism and technique. Development is predicated on the coherence and integrity of the totality of society taken as a whole.

Many of the principles  His Excellency  articulated thirteen years ago are embodied in NIRP though post-STDP, it seems to be that this good practice has been relegated to oblivion and ignored  in development projects.  From what we heard at the LST workshop and last week’s forum the politicians and officials of 2014 are no different to those Mahinda Rajapakse talked about in 2001. 

"They have no time for the procedures that guarantee the authentic participation of the people in them”  The  increasing role that the military plays in facilitating land acquisition, makes the situation today very different to that of the STDP (where acquisition was a civil administration process), and makes it even more likely that Mahinda Rajapakse’s 2001 call for treating people with dignity will go unheeded and that the those displaced by 'development' will continue to be betrayed.