The World Bank has estimated that forcible 'development-induced displacement and resettlement' (DIDR) – including the forced movement of people to make way for large infrastructure projects such as dams, urban developments and irrigation canals – now affects an average of 10 million people per year. India is thought to have the largest number of people displaced by such projects, at least 33 million. It is calculated that for every large dam (of which there are 3,300 in India) around 44,000 people are displaced.[50]

As with disaster-induced displacement, there is often a link to political factors, since the most impoverished and marginalized ethnic groups often bear the brunt of the dislocation caused by development projects. For example, in India, Adivasis (tribal people) account for 40-50 per cent of communities affected by DIDR, though they constitute only 8 per cent of the country's population.[51]

Growing awareness of the problem in the 1980s led the World Bank to attach conditions to its loans designed to ensure compensation and appropriate resettlement for displaced communities.[52] While the major donors now generally impose such conditions, they are difficult to enforce[53] and the compensation is often inadequate. As a consequence, the result for those displaced is often dispossession of land and resources, violation of their human rights and a lowering of living standards.[54]

There are many more people displaced by development projects than there are refugees. But unlike refugees, the millions displaced by development do not have an adequate protection regime. They often face permanent poverty and end up socially and politically marginalized.[55] Many of them drift into urban slums, or become part of floating populations which may spill over into international migration.[56]

Environmental and natural disasters

Looking ahead

Notes

50. A. Roy, 'The Greater Common Good', in A. Roy (ed), The Cost of Living, Flamingo, London, 2000.

51. M. Colchester, Dams, Indigenous People and Vulnerable Ethnic Minorities, WCD Thematic Review, Social Issues I.2, prepared as an input to the World Commission on Dams, Cape Town, November 2000, p. 16.

52. C. McDowell, Understanding Impoverishment: The Consequences of Development-induced Displacement, Berghahn Books, Providence and Oxford, 1996.

53. C. de Wet, 'Improving Outcomes in Development- Induced Displacement and Resettlement Projects', Forced Migration Review, Issue 12, January 2002, pp. 6-12.

54. T. Downing, 'Creating Poverty: the Flawed Economic Logic of the World Bank's Revised Involuntary Resettlement Policy', Forced Migration Review, Issue 12, January 2002, pp. 13-14.

55. M. Cernea and C. McDowell, Risks and Reconstruction: Experiences of Resettlers and Refugees, World Bank, Washington DC, 2000.

56. S. Castles and N. Van Hear, Developing DFID's Policy Approach to Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, Consultancy Report and Policy Recommendations, Volume 1, Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford, February 2005, p. 14.