Displacement, resettlement, and livelihood restoration: safeguard standards in practice

ABSTRACT

This article presents a case study of development practice based on the author’s experience of designing a livelihood restoration plan and monitoring its implementation. The plan was based on safeguard standards of a multilateral development bank that funded a private sector renewable energy project on land belonging to a vulnerable community in Central India. Illustrating the challenges faced in implementing and monitoring this plan and the reasons for its failure, the article argues that a complex set of institutional and individual relationships determine the way in which safeguard policies are translated into practice by diverse and interrelated actors.

Cet article présente une étude de cas sur les pratiques du développement, basée sur l'expérience de son auteur dans la conception d'un plan de restauration des moyens de subsistance et le suivi de sa mise en œuvre. Ce plan était fondé sur les normes de sauvegarde d'une banque multilatérale de développement qui finançait un projet privé d'énergie renouvelable, situé sur des terres appartenant à une communauté vulnérable du centre de l'Inde. Illustrant les difficultés rencontrées dans la mise en œuvre, le suivi de ce plan et les raisons de son échec, l'article soutient qu'un ensemble complexe de relations institutionnelles et individuelles détermine la manière dont les politiques de sauvegarde sont traduites dans la pratique par divers acteurs liés entre eux.

El presente artículo da cuenta de un estudio de caso que abordó las prácticas de desarrollo a partir de la experiencia que la autora obtuvo al elaborar un plan de restauración de medios de vida y participar en el monitoreo de su implementación. Dicho plan se fundamentó en normas de salvaguardia establecidas por un banco multilateral de desarrollo que financió un proyecto en materia de energía renovable en tierras propiedad de una comunidad vulnerable de India Central, impulsado por el sector privado. Tras ilustrar los retos surgidos de la implementación y el monitoreo del plan, así como los motivos de su fracaso, el artículo sostiene que la manera en que las normas de salvaguardia son puestas en práctica por actores diversos e interrelacionados es determinada por un conjunto complejo de relaciones institucionales e individuales.

KEYWORDS:

• Aid – Accountability, Development policies
• Governance and public policy
• Conflict and reconstruction – Forced displacement
• Labour and livelihoods
• South Asia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Asmita Kabra is Professor and Dean at the School of Human Ecology, Ambedkar University Delhi. She gained her PhD in Economics in 2008 from the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her doctoral work focused on the impact of conservation-induced displacement on the livelihood of poor and marginal Adivasi communities, and was among India’s first full-length studies of such displacement. Her research interests include human ecology, development studies, and critical agrarian studies. She works on land acquisition, conservation-induced displacement, poverty, rural livelihoods, natural resource dependence, Adivasi livelihoods, and dryland agriculture. Prof. Kabra has worked on a number of research projects, studies, and consultancies related to conservation-induced displacement in various Protected Areas in India. She combines research with a range of hands-on development projects at the grassroots level. She is one of the founder trustees of Samrakshan Trust, an NGO working for socially just conservation in India. She is also the President of Adharshila, an organisation working for meaningful education for underprivileged rural children in district Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh.

Notes

1. Scheduled Castes are historically disadvantaged social groups within the Hindu caste hierarchy, recognised by the Constitution of India through the (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950.