Impoverishment is the central issue in development-caused population displacements and resettlement. Historical experience shows that, more often than not, the risks of impoverishment and social disruption turn into grim reality. In India, for instance, resettlement researchers found that development programmes have caused the displacement and involuntary resettlement of close to twenty million people over roughly four decades, but that as much as 75 per cent of these people have not been ‘rehabilitated’ (Fernandes 1991; Fernandes et al. 1989). That means that the vast majority of resettlers in India have been impoverished and made worse off.

Similar findings about impoverishment and the de facto lack of equity in resettlement come from many other countries. Another serious consequence is the political tension surrounding forced relocation. The socio-cultural and psychological stress induced in people who are forcibly uprooted lingers long and shapes their subsequent individual and group behaviour. Therefore, targeted economic, technical, financial, legal and cultural measures must be taken to prevent or mitigate the impoverishment risks in each and every development programme that entails displacement.

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND PLANNING WITH AN EQUITY COMPASS

Understanding the mechanisms that cause impoverishment under government planned developments is a key prerequisite for mitigating the risks intrinsic in displacement. Studies that I carried out in 1985-6 (Cemea 1986) and in 1989-90 (Cemea 1990) identified the main ‘impoverishment risks’ inherent in processes of involuntary resettlement. Subsequently, during 1993-4,1 led a Task Force established to review all 1986-93 World Bank- financed projects involving involuntary population displacement, a review that also covered many projects not financed by the Bank (Cemea 1995b; World Bank 1994b).

We determined that in the 1990s about 10,000,000 people were being displaced annually by infrastructural development programmes in some key sectors (dam construction, urban development, highways and roads). This amounts to some 90-100 million people for the decade, a number much larger than the total numbers of refugees caused by wars and natural disasters. We also focused a large part of our study on how impoverishment happens during resettlement and how it can be avoided, in line with the World Bank's policy to protect and restore the livelihoods of people involuntarily resettled (World Bank 1990). In this chapter I elaborate on some findings from this set of successive studies.