Catalog

Background

All development projects improve with the active participation of their stakeholders. But such participation becomes essential when the project requires people to move from their homes to settle elsewhere.

The North Java Flood Control Sector Project in Indonesia is one such project. Its aim is to help prevent flooding and-when that is not possible-reduce the damage. It prevents or minimizes loss of life, spread of disease, destruction of homes, damage to crops, and disruption of commercial life in the project area.

The project is designed to help 800,000 people living in Indonesia's most populous Java island. It also includes schemes to raise the incomes of the poor along 400 km of the northern coast of Java.

But the construction of flood control infrastructure requires the resettlement of 1,380 people. In addition, several thousand sharecroppers stand to lose their present source of livelihood. The project is helping relocate those who need to move and find alternative means of income for the affected sharecroppers. In this situation, it becomes critical to carefully plan, implement, and monitor all aspects of the project in close collaboration with those most affected: the people who will be moving. The Asian Development Bank, in its Policy on Involuntary Resettlement, gives special emphasis to community participation and project monitoring.

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Focused Group Discussions

The North Java project follows a participatory approach involving the affected communities through interviews, focused group discussions, and workshops. The people are not just a source of information, as in more traditional, less participatory projects. The local communities are involved in analyzing their options and making decisions.

In 2001, focused group discussions were held at five locations in the project area. Project staff and local communities attended. The feedback from these discussions and many field interviews was discussed and summarized at a workshop in April 2001.

Workshop recommendations included setting specific criteria and indicators, in advance, to serve as the basis for participatory project monitoring and evaluation. Participants stressed the importance of regular monitoring with the active participation of those most affected.

They also pointed out that the quality of participation can be undermined by a lack of technical knowledge, insufficient time to prepare a really good resettlement plan, and lack of information about project progress.

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Team Formed to Mediate

Another problem, perhaps harder to resolve, is a mismatch between ADB's Policy on Involuntary Resettlement and existing government policies, laws, and regulations. This can make it difficult for governments to follow ADB's compensation guidelines on the basis of the replacement value of the land or other assets lost and the rights of squatters.

Reaching a mutually satisfactory agreement on the value and process of compensation is a difficult task. The North Java project created Team Nine, a committee of nine officials from local government agencies, to mediate between the government and the people who need to relocate. The workshop participants stressed that the affected persons should have access to information on all the relevant government regulations and suggested that an independent and credible organization be appointed to help them.

These recommendations have come directly from the project's stakeholders, including poor villagers who benefit from the project but also face relocation because of it. ADB and the Government of Indonesia have acted as facilitators, encouraging the local communities to participate in their own development.

Such projects also provide a learning experience for government agencies and donor organizations. In their role as facilitators, they need to create an environment in which all stakeholders feel free to voice their opinions; allow participants to use modes of expression with which they are most familiar, such as drawing maps or diagrams; provide full information to the participants, explaining technical details as clearly as possible; and, most of all, to listen to and act on what the participants say.

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