Development-Induced Displacement Risks and Coping with Resettlement

Abstract

The scale of development-related displacement has been growing rapidly over the past few decades in most developing countries. This paper tries to examine the household and other characteristics that make displaced households vulnerable to different types of risks and help them in confronting these risks successfully. This study harnesses a large primary dataset from 1,070 affected households in four irrigation projects along the Godavari River Basin in Andhra Pradesh. The analysis shows the loss of land, casualisation of labour, and loss of livestock assets in the resettlement process. The households perceive economic followed by health-related risks as major risks. Econometric analysis shows that land ownership, education, social category, gender of the head of household, dependence on forests and family size are significant variables in explaining household’s exposure to risk. Further, a sense of satisfaction with housing and the time taken for resettlement has a positive effect on households’ ability to confront displacement risks, whereas episodes of illness have a negative influence. Resettlement and rehabilitation programmes tailored to include vocational training, assistance for self-employment, and strengthening of SHGs and other community-based organisations (CBOs) can have a significant impact on households that have lower adaptation capacity to confront and overcome displacement-related risks. The difficulty in overcoming displacement risks calls for providing full compensation, investment on post-settlement welfare and benefitsharing measures by not only recognising resettlement as a dynamic process, but also by understanding the heterogeneous impacts of this process on seemingly homogeneous households and communities.