CARM Survey Results

ADB: “The Massive Disruption…was a Disaster”

CARM’s report on the socio-economic survey, while being careful about directly attributing the 63 families’ hardships to the ADB’s lack of supervision over the HW1 Project’s resettlement processes, states as follows:

: It is not correct to conclude that the ill-planned and executed resettlement plan for the Highway 1 Project is the root of the present impoverished situation of most of the 63 APs [affected persons]. These APs were mostly very poor even before the Project, with no reliable back-up source of sustenance and livelihood in case of disasters happening, such as during floods, death of a productive member of the household, and even displacement from domicile and place of business…Barring unforeseen calamities, such as floods and illness or deaths, the people were earning barely enough to keep the household alive, but not enough to send children to school…The massive disruption brought about by the Project to the lives of the people living along the ROW was a disaster. Families had to be uprooted over and over again, disrupting their socio-economic activities. With no properties and tangible assets to depend on, coupled with a faulty resettlement carried out by Project authorities, the APs had very slim chance of being able to recover from the Project’s adverse social and economic impacts and restore their lives to pre-Project levels (emphasis added).

It is not totally incorrect to compare what happened to the 63 families to a natural disaster. Their impoverished situations are becoming a humanitarian issue. Indeed, had this been a case on communities hit by a natural disaster, the families might not have been left unattended for such a long time.

Materials
>>Results of CARM’s socio-economic survey:
ADB’s November 2007 Mission Report in Appendix 7 of the ADB’s Resettlement Audit Report, dated 7 May 2008.