Evaluation News
OED 17 October 2006
ADB's Involuntary Resettlement Safeguards
"Changing procedures and organizational arrangements made to enforce the policy have been setting the bar higher, making application of the policy less efficient and consistent in many cases." Adopted in 1995, the policy requires projects to avoid involuntary resettlement where feasible or mitigate adverse impacts and pay special attention to the problems of the vulnerable. It aims to ensure the displaced people receive assistance that will enable them to be at least as well off after the project as before. It details how to deal with land Operations Evaluation Department Asian Development Bank
acquisition and resettlement in a systematic way. The evaluation assesses that the policy is relevant to ADB’s aims of developing infrastructure and reducing poverty.
"Projects approved between 1996 and 2005 were expected to affect at least 1.8 million people in terms of their access to, or use of, land and often also in terms of loss of house or other structure." WALTER KOLKMA
MANILA, PHILIPPINES - An evaluation team has rated ADB's policy on involuntary resettlement as effective in terms of the impact on people affected by infrastructure projects in a limited number of countries visited. But compliance with the policy has been variable over the years and across projects and countries.1 The assessment, carried out by the Operations Evaluation Department (OED), was conducted through case studies on projects in People's Republic of China, India, Philippines, and Viet Nam. It is based on available information about the coverage of compensation provided to affected persons and the satisfaction levels registered. More recent resettlement operations appear to be better planned and carried out, according to the assessment, while capacity development in project executing agencies – usually government offices – had also by and large been effective. But changing procedures and organizational arrangements made to enforce the policy have been setting the bar higher, making application of the policy less efficient and consistent in many cases, according to the report.
Because of additional due diligence and more strict interpretation of the policy since 2002, half of all ADBsupported projects have included resettlement planning, compared to about one fifth in the period 1994-2001. Projects approved between 1996 and 2005 were expected to affect at least 1.8 million people in terms of their access to, or use of, land and often also in terms of loss of house or other structure, mostly associated with transport projects. “The involuntary resettlement policy has proven contentious both inside and outside ADB for differing reasons, and it is a topic on which it is virtually impossible to develop a consensus,” says Bruce Murray,
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