Water

Dams and Development E-Paper Contents

p. 27 of 74 BACK | NEXT Home Page of Dams and Development Foreword I. Why an e-paper on dams and development? II. Assessing options III. Participatory processes IV. Social impacts Resettlement - compensation or development? Upstream and downstream impacts Gender design - ADB case studies What do ADB Policies and strategies say V. Environmental impacts VI. Benefit distribution VII. Dam safety and sustainability VIII. Existing projects IX. Improving governance X. What other organizations say XI. ADB, Dams, and Development XII. References Contact Us

What do ADB policies and strategies say?

As a development institution, ADB recognizes that acquisition of land may be required and changes to the source of livelihood often results from dam projects as with many other infrastructure projects. Provisions to address the consequent resettlement and compensation needs of the affected population will depend upon the prevailing societal norms and legal instruments.

For example, the mechanisms will be significantly different in cases where alternative land and livelihood opportunities are scarce compared with cases where open and active land and property markets exist. ADBs policy framework on resettlement has therefore to be sufficiently broad to accommodate all situations and have the flexibility to provide support to affected communities consistent with the overall development aim of its operations.

Dam projects represent a particularly complex case where resettlement mainly affects remote rural communities and changes in river flows can introduce adverse livelihood impacts across a large area, both upstream and downstream. Considerable experience has been gained by ADB in the implementation of rural development projects that is appropriate to transfer to the resettlement components of dam projects.

The following extracts from ADB's policies, strategies and procedures provide the framework within which resettlement is addressed.

• Involuntary Resettlement
• Indigenous Peoples
• Social Protection Strategy
• Gender and Development Policy
• Economic Analysis

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