Development-Induced Displacement and Resettlement: Causes, Consequences, and Socio-Legal Context

For many decades, the practical dimension of the implementation of development policy has been the subject of debate among national authorities, academics and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the regional development banks. Economic development policies are largely dependent on the model of governance and objective economic and demographic factors observed in particular countries.

As we know, in many countries ruled by authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, unsuitable economic policies have usually led to a rapid and invasive model of industrialization, apart from their social consequences. Very often they were based on central planning and decisions having more to do with political propaganda than with rational economic profit and loss considerations. The policy of the Great Leap Forward, initiated by Mao in China, is considered by historians to be one of the greatest crimes committed by an authority against its citizens over the centuries. Specialists in the field of history and demography estimate that the Great Leap Forward caused the deaths of between 18 and 45 million Chinese citizens. The development policy of post-independence India, which combined elements of nationalist and socialist economic policies and was aimed at economic self-reliance, did not produce destructive social consequences on such a scale. Although it contributed to the levelling of social divisions and economic inequalities, it also led to deterioration in the living standards of thousands of tribal people. In many African countries which followed the socialist model of development, economic policy was strongly based on Soviet practice. Although attempts at collectivization and villagization by some countries on the continent brought short-term economic benefits, many such attempts failed and did not contribute in any way to solving demographic problems.

Standards of implementation of economic development cannot simply reflect the country's form of government. Equally important are the economic, social, demographic and cultural factors which characterize each country. A strategic approach should affect both the general direction of policy and its practical implementation. A very common mistake of development policies implemented within the last century in totalitarian states was the formation of policy on the basis of ideology. The planning stage, and even the general outline of the economic development strategy of entire regions or countries, should be preceded by in-depth field studies. It is important to identify and analyze in particular: 1. the resources available for economic development, 2. the needs of local communities, 3. the social capital characteristic of the inhabitants of the territory, 4. the dominant economic model in a particular territory, and 5. barriers to implementation. Binding decisions on the nature of economic development should take into account local demographic and environmental factors. Lack of accurate preliminary analysis is a common factor in the realization of projects that prove non-rational in economic and social terms. Development projects can serve the interests not only of the local community but also of much broader categories of persons. It is necessary for each investment to contribute to improvement in the well-being of local communities and of the wider international community. Development projects should not only be a response to the needs of the local community, but should also use their local capital to the greatest extent possible. Analysis of the factors conducive to the implementation of development policies should be complemented by careful study of the obstacles to their realization. It seems especially important, therefore, to analyze not only the economic rationality of each project but also the potentially negative social and environmental costs of its implementation.

It seems that development policy, in whatever region it is implemented, should contain three fundamental elements. It should be 1. ethically acceptable, 2. socially sustainable, and 3. minimally damaging to the environment.

In recent years, analysis of development policy dilemmas in terms of ethics has attracted the interest of a growing number of anthropologists, philosophers, experts in applied development, economists, and—what is probably the most important group—even some policy-makers responsible for the direction of development. This fact seems to be a result of the increasing prominence of sustainability issues and the responsibility of public and private actors for the consequences of economic development. Because of the multiplicity of theoretical considerations it is difficult to identify a single and comprehensive conception of the ethical legitimacy of development policy and the accompanying development projects. It seems that the ethically correct development policy should view economic development in isolation from pure economic profit and loss accounts, and focus on maximization of the well-being and accumulated social capital of the largest possible proportion of the country's population.

Ethically implemented development policy cannot be carried out at the expense of some, but should serve the purposes of the greatest number of people. Apart from the realm of implementation, the majority of state development projects should promote the broader interests of society. Business projects led by the private sector may also be associated with specific benefits for the whole community and indeed for all citizens of the state. Sometimes, however, such projects lend themselves to maximization of the profits of narrow business groups or transnational corporations and in no way contribute to an increase in the well-being of local communities. A good example of investment that often ignores the needs of local communities and does not contribute to the economic development of residents is the extraction of crude oil and the expansion of open-cast mining carried out by transnational corporations in some areas of the world. A large portion of the income from such projects is rapidly transferred to countries outside the area of exploitation, thus hardly contributing to the improvement of local people's economic situation. Both private and public investment is likely to contribute to national economic development. The principles of CSR put into effect over the past few years have led to gradual improvement in the situation, as reflected even in improved standards of resettlement and increased amounts of compensation received by people displaced due to the development of mining.

A development policy which is suitable in ethical terms cannot be based on any form of discrimination, even against the smallest communities. Often development projects which are positive and desirable from the point of view of the majority in the society are ethically unacceptable because they lead to violations of human rights and further marginalization of the most vulnerable groups of affected and displaced people. However, total elimination of the negative impacts of large development projects is not always possible. Those responsible for implementing development policies, however, should at least try to restore to the displaced and affected communities economic conditions similar to those that existed before the start of the project. Also, in the long term, local communities should be able to enjoy the fruits of development projects on a basis of equality with other nationals of the country.

The purpose of economic development should be not only to strengthen the fundamental economic basis of the functioning of communities, but also to provide them with adequate social benefits. Economic growth must be accompanied by an increase in the level of education, along with better access to health care institutions, social services and other activities aimed at maximizing human capital. Unfortunately, in many countries the plans for economic development are created and implemented on the basis of a purely economic profit and loss account. In others, beneficiaries of economic growth are almost exclusively the closed circles of power. Gains from increased energy production and exploitation of raw materials have been devoted to the militarization of the country. Development projects in many countries are also a direct and indirect tool of oppression of hostile groups.

Research on DIDR was first undertaken by applied anthropologists who studied the social consequences of dam construction for displaced and affected communities. Over the years, we have witnessed increasing attempts at a more general analysis of this issue on the basis of political economy and development studies. The original studies were primarily focused on the problem of DIDR in the context of socially costly development projects implemented in the countries of the global south. Experts have rarely referred to examples of development-caused resettlement in well-developed countries in Europe or the US and Canada. Here too, however, intensive economic development has become a cause of forced population relocation. In Europe, as in all other parts of the world, the most negative consequences of displacement have been observed in countries under totalitarian or authoritarian rule, such as the USSR or Romania. As in other regions of the world and in Europe, various types of involuntary relocation are strongly connected with and influenced by each other. Factors shaping the future dynamics of DIDR have turned out to be the earlier deportations or conflict-induced displacements from the same territory. An example of this type of interaction, quantitatively small but very significant from a theoretical point of view, is development-caused resettlement in post-war Czechoslovakia. As a result of decisions made at the Yalta Conference to resettle the German population away from the territory of Czechoslovakia, some regions of that country have become much more sparsely populated. A previously mentioned influential factor consisted of infrastructural projects carried out in Czechoslovakia, such as the construction of small dams. The implementation of certain projects in Czechoslovakia therefore not only served the economic needs of the country but was also associated with the demographic consequences of the earlier deportations of Germans. Particularly interesting from the point of view of this paper is the story of the small town of Přísečnice (German Preßnitz) in Czechoslovakia, which was fully submerged in the seventies under the waters of a small artificial reservoir. It is one of the very few examples of country towns in Europe submerged by a created reservoir. After the deportation of German inhabitants of Preßnitz in 1945, this town gradually lost its importance. In the early seventies, the Czechoslovakian authorities decided to resettle its few residents and demolish it to create a small water reservoir on its territory. This small-scale dam-induced displacement, therefore, was made possible by the demographic consequences of the deportation of the German population twenty years earlier[34].

Of a much more socially expensive character were the displacements carried out in the Soviet Union. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the territory of this country became the site of deportations on a massive scale, displacing whole ethnic communities, in addition to the more individualized exile of people whom the Bolsheviks considered enemies of the proletariat. The Soviet vision of economic development was accompanied by substantial involuntary resettlement. Let us mention at least a few hundred thousand people forced to relocate following the creation of dams on the Volga river basin, or implementation of other projects of this kind on the territory of contemporary Ukraine. Development-caused resettlement has been much more limited in the countries of Central Europe. A specific cause of involuntary resettlement in Poland and in two German states during the second half of the twentieth century has been the expansion of lignite mining. Despite the lack of accurate statistics, it is estimated that such projects might have caused the relocation of several tens of thousands of Polish citizens and even of 30,000–100,000 inhabitants of today's Germany. Involuntary resettlement caused by lignite mining is also observed, on a very limited scale, in other European countries such as Serbia and Kosovo. The social consequences of such projects were, however, incomparably milder than those seen in African countries, India and the USSR.

Development-caused displacement has had especially negative social consequences in countries characterized by a land-based economy and low employment flexibility, together with strongly rooted social stratification. Because of these factors, involuntary relocations have never become an obvious and intense social problem in Europe. Citizens of highly developed countries in the 20th century were much less dependent on the land and benefitted from a highly flexible economic and employment model. The transition from rural to city life was a relatively rapid process, not usually associated with appreciable negative consequences. The result of the change of residence was a generally improved economic situation, without multi-generational marginalization and social disarticulation. A completely different situation was observed in countries with a static (class) social model and a strong relationship with the land and other basic resources. Loss or restriction of access to land and resources on which communities depend, caused by development projects, was synonymous with the collapse of the economic model hitherto practised and the prospect of poverty.

Specialists from the field of applied anthropology, sociology or applied development should not limit their considerations to development-caused resettlement in developing countries in Africa or in countries like India and China. Comparison of standards of implementation of displacement in countries with completely different economic and social models may be a useful tool for creating further mechanisms with which to minimize the negative social costs of displacement. Despite the obvious variation in development-caused resettlement in different parts of the globe, these processes have many elements in common.

Research on development-caused resettlement was initially based on anthropological field studies conducted within affected populations. The creators of the first and probably best-known project concerning the consequences of involuntary resettlement in Africa (the Gwembe Tonga Research Project, initiated in 1956) examined, inter alia, the impact of displacement on the evolution of social ties, the economic model or the health risks affecting the displaced. Research of this kind highlighted the situation of individuals and communities as central actors particularly affected by the negative consequences of megaprojects. But it has become increasingly necessary to engage specialists from other fields of knowledge in research into this issue, involving, for example, detailed examination of the health and psychological problems of affected communities. There could also be a link between research on DIDR and studies of other types of internal displacement. As has been observed in recent years, the emergence of detailed research studies within the IDP has led to the creation of more and more subcategories of this process. However, there are interesting individually-integrating theoretical reasons for displacement in the light of which its common features can be identified. In the following passages of this report I would like to briefly highlight a couple of issues which constitute key elements of contemporary scientific discourse on DIDR.

I. The global scale of development-caused displacement. It is estimated that each year during the eighties and nineties development projects caused the displacement of 10 million people worldwide. In recent years, more specialists have spoken of approximately 15 million development displacees per year. In the nineties we had already observed an increasing number of people displaced following the construction of dams in India and China. It appears that recently the number of people displaced by the construction of dams has slightly decreased, as there has been a minimal decrease in such projects in some regions. Expansion of mining and alternative energy resources, giving rise to the creation of large dams in many countries, no longer plays such a significant economic role as it did a few decades ago. Many dams have been created in recent years in Latin American countries which endorse the pattern of rapid economic development. This process is accompanied by an increase in the number of evictions in urban areas in connection with re-urbanization, as well as those associated with the expansion of mining, oil exploitation and the conservation of nature. According to research, there has recently been a significant increase in the urban population as a share of the total global population. The transformation of urban space in developing countries, particularly in densely populated Asian agglomerations, has led to a growing number of urban resettlements and evictions. The vast majority of such relocations affect residents of the poorest neighborhoods. Therefore it seems necessary to intensify research into specific urban displacements in individual countries and aid mechanisms for afflicted people. We are also observing an increasing scale of displacement caused by the exploitation of raw materials. The growing need for resources in highly developed countries makes the global south a natural arena for their exploitation. In Asian countries such as India and China, extraction of raw materials is an important factor in the stimulation of rapid and in many ways unsuitable economic development. The most visible consequence of mining development is the creation of new or expansion of existing mining areas, usually located on indigenous people's territory. As Dr Walter Fernandes noted, between the 1960s and the 1980s the average area of a single open-cast mine in India increased six times, from 150 to 800 acres[35]. It seems that expansion of mining areas will be the cause of an increasing number of displacements and a factor in conflicts with indigenous populations. We have also seen the increasing scale of displacement caused by nature conservation. As well as in many African countries, the scale of the problem significantly affects the tribal populations of India, who are heavily dependent on a land-based economy and common resources such as forests and rivers.

The changing catalogue of the causes of DIDR, along with its scale, reflects the evolution of economic development. Equally important are the changes in the dynamics of economic development implemented in several states. Due to the very extended list of causes of DIDR and the lack of accurate statistical data from many countries it is very difficult to examine with even approximate accuracy the magnitude of the problem throughout the world. The number of 15,000,000 development-induced displaced people per year is therefore an approximation; while the primary factor influencing it is the dynamics of implementation of development projects in Asian states. It is also worth considering the need to conduct a more accurate statistical analysis of the problem. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) has collected annual statistics for a few years on the number of people displaced worldwide as the result of natural disasters and internal armed conflicts. It is worth considering, therefore, that the research already undertaken should be supplemented by more thorough analysis of the extent and causes of development-caused resettlement in different regions of the world.

II. The scale of development-caused displacement in comparision with the other categories of migrations and displacements. As with the other categories of internal displacement, it is very difficult to determine the approximate number of people involuntarily resettled in the aftermath of development projects. Many developing countries do not collect such statistics. In other countries the issue of development-caused displacement is mistakenly classed as a form of economic migration. In many countries, development-induced displacement is combined with other types of forced migration. Persons displaced as a result of development are therefore placed within other categories of forced migrants.

It is very difficult to compare the number of people displaced or resettled each year in the aftermath of development projects with the annual scale of the other categories of internal displacement. The annual growth rate of all categories of internal displacement is marked by extensive change. For example, according to the IDMC report, in 2010 natural disasters forced the evacuation of more than 42 million people worldwide. A year later, the scale of natural hazards-induced displacement was almost three times smaller, with fewer than 15 million people being uprooted. Similar patterns can be observed when we compare the scale of DIDR with the magnitude of two other causes of internal displacement: the escalation of internal violence (conflict-induced displacement) and long-term environmental processes (environmentally-induced displacement).

According to M. M. Cernea, the problem of DIDR may directly affect 15 million people each year, forming the largest category of irreversible internal displacement worldwide. As noted above, the number of people temporarily evacuated or displaced in the aftermath of natural hazards in 2010 was over 42 million. The following year, the magnitude of disaster-induced displacement (14.9 million people uprooted by natural disasters) was already closer to the suggested dynamics of DIDR. Remember, however, that much of the displacement caused by natural disasters is short-term in nature, often limited to a few days of evacuation. The displacement caused by economic development often involves moving to areas adjacent to those previously inhabited, but is typically of a long-term nature. Analyzing the estimated scale of several types of internal displacement, we can say that, among these categories, development-induced displacement is usually second in magnitude only to disaster-induced displacement. As Hoshour noted around 250 million people worldwide have been displaced by economic development over the past twenty years[36].

The annual scale of displacement caused by economic development seems at present to be greater than that associated with the escalation of internal violence (conflict-induced displacement) or with long- or slow-onset changes in the environment (environmentally-induced displacement). According to the reports of international organizations or other institutions such as the IDMC, the global population internally displaced in the aftermath of internal conflicts is currently estimated at between 24 and 28 million people. The number of people newly displaced by ongoing conflicts in 2011 was estimated at only 3.5 million. Even if the IDMC report does not take into account some cases of short-term displacement caused by the escalation of violence, the annual growth rate of development-induced displacement seems to be greater. There is also a problem in comparing the magnitude of DIDR with the annual scale of environmentally-induced displacement. Accurately estimating the annual scale of displacement and migration caused by slow-onset environmental changes is extremely difficult, if at all feasible. Forced mobility caused by slow-onset environmental change is often seen as a subcategory of economic migration. For example, the famous examples of rural-urban migrations in Africa caused by drought, ongoing land degradation, water shortages and the prospect of famine are often classified (perceived) as economic phenomena, completely detached from their environmental context. Due to the lack of accurate statistical data on the scale of this problem, it is difficult to compare it with the scale of development-induced displacement.

III. The common elements of development-induced displacement and other causes of internal displacement worldwide. Development-caused displacement has much in common with other categories of internal displacement. As with these other categories, its fundamental cause is the dynamic conflict of interests within a static and limited territory. In many countries of the global south, development-caused displacement occurs in parallel with other categories of displacement. During the nineties in Sudan, Nigeria's problem was strongly connected with the conflict-induced displacement there. In South Asia, development-caused displacement coexists with displacements stemming from natural disasters and long-term environmental changes.