Maninder Gill's Memo to Dana regarding involuntary resettlement

 

August 19, 2001

Dear Dana,

Thank you for your continued interest in the conversion of the Bank's involuntary resettlement policy. In both written correspondence and conference calls, you have provided comments and suggestions worthy of our full consideration. The issues you have raised have been considered, and re-considered, by Bank technical staff and management.

As you know, many of the suggestions advanced by yourself and others have been incorporated into the draft policy. We now believe that there is little to be gained through further delay in the policy conversion process. We know that we may not have fully alleviated all of your concerns regarding remaining issues. As we have explained in the past, however, we confident that the draft policy does not dilute policy provisions, and will not lead to dilution in practice. In some cases, as we have also attempted to explain, we have not been able to accommodate suggestions that would exceed our policy conversion mandate, or that cannot be feasibly or practically implemented in the widely varying contexts in which Bank-supported projects are situated. There is no reason to repeat at length here the replies we have made on previous occasions. But we do want to briefly summarize our views on each remaining issue, as follows:

Direct/Indirect Impacts - Essentially, our purpose in this regard is simply to assert that the involuntary resettlement policy addresses only social and economic impacts directly resulting from land taking. The policy does not, and is not intended to, address all potential socio-economic impacts that could result from a Bank-assisted development project. Other project instruments as well as improvements in project design offer more appropriate mechanisms to address some of those issues. While we will elaborate on this in detail in the GP Resettlement Sourcebook, many of these issues will need to be considered in the project context.

Voluntary/Involuntary Resettlement - OD 4.30, by its very title, clearly relates to involuntary resettlement. We are confident that the draft policy provides no loopholes or pretexts by which involuntary resettlement may be classified as voluntary. Beyond that, we continue to believe that there is neither need nor justification for the Bank to attempt to regulate voluntary behavior under this policy.

Improvement vs. Restoration of Livelihoods - As stated before, we have no mandate to change the stated fundamental policy objective as part of a policy conversion. In general terms, the objective remains as before: To design resettlement plans as development opportunities, so that affected persons receive opportunities to improve their livelihoods, or at least to restore them. Again, we wish to make the point that actual project contexts vary. OD 4.30 and many critiques of resettlement policy and practice refer to large-scale reservoir projects, that very often do pose very severe impacts (wholesale loss of land, relocation of whole communities, necessity to adapt to different circumstances, and so forth). Under these circumstances, elaborate resettlement planning is necessary because identification of new opportunities is necessary. Changes of this magnitude can provide opportunities to improve the incomes and livelihoods of displaced populations (in the extreme cases, reservoir resettlement has been undertaken as free-standing development projects). It should be remembered, however, that a small and diminishing proportion of projects involve reservoir resettlement. In most projects involving land acquisition, impacts are much less significant or even marginal, population relocation is comparatively slight or even non-existent, and affected persons need not make major adjustments in their patterns of life. Under these circumstances, there is much less need for, and much less opportunity for, major development interventions to achieve major improvements in livelihoods.

Protection to Vulnerable Groups - As stated previously, the draft policy does not weaken policy protections for those lacking legal title to land or other assets. To the contrary, the purpose of the language in the draft policy is to provide a more effective means for borrowers to assist such populations. Experience shows that many borrowers presently are constrained because local laws do not allow provision of "compensation" per se to persons lacking legal status. Our intent simply is to provide alternative means by which borrowers can be enabled to effectively achieve policy objectives.

Resettlement of Indigenous Peoples - We disagree that the draft policy in any way diminishes protections afforded indigenous peoples. In fact, we believe that draft language strengthens protections. We do not wish to elaborate at length about indigenous peoples issues in the resettlement policy, since the Bank has a separate safeguards policy explicitly for that purpose. Based on some of your suggestions on the subject, we have made a few modifications in the text of the draft OP/BP 4.12.

Obviously, these are important and complex issues, about which well-intending people can disagree, even after repeated exchange of views. At this point, we are satisfied that the draft policy usefully clarifies some aspects of our principles and objectives and, within the limitations of our policy conversion mandate, strengthens the protections provided to persons affected by Bank-supported projects. We are confident that it does not dilute the standards established in OD 4.30, and will not lead to any dilution in practice.

Since there would appear to be little likelihood of reaching further agreement on remaining issues, we now intend to move forward with the conversion process. At this point, we once more want to gratefully acknowledge the contributions you have made during this process. We believe your efforts have helped us clarify some aspects of the draft policy in a manner more amenable to all concerned. And we welcome your participation in the future as we continue to seek ways to improve involuntary resettlement practice.