Involuntary displacement increases the risk of impoverishment. From 9-13 September 1996 the Refugee Studies Programme, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford convened delegates from 24 industrialised and developing countries including scholars, practitioners, government representatives, bilateral and multilateral donors, and NGO representatives to examine measures which reduce the risk of impoverishment which continues to haunt uprooted populations. The Conference reconfirms the findings and recommendations of the First International Conference on Displacement and Resettlement and finds that the risks of impoverishment from involuntary displacement are reduced when:

1. Displacement is avoided from the onset. Donor and resettlement agencies, in co-operation with fully informed affected populations, search - at the earliest planning stage - for solutions to avoid or minimise displacement.
2. If after all options are exhausted and resettlement proves unavoidable, displacement is transformed into a development opportunity for the displacees.
3. Resettlement is a dynamic process whose impacts on displacees takes place at different times. To avoid impoverishment and facilitate development, resettlement need take place within a context which includes carefully laid out policies, legal frameworks, and development strategies explicitly designed to a) avoid impoverishment, b) build financial arrangements and associated institutional arrangements to meet the medium and long term needs for reconstructing the livelihoods of the displaced , and c) assure effective actions to mediate non-desirable outcomes from the perspective of the displacee.
4. Relief strategies are transformed into development strategies that draw on the regularities being identified through research on the displacement-resettlement process, adjusted to specific cultural aspirations and local conditions.
5. Agencies, together with those to be displaced, prioritise risk factors that might lead to impoverishment. At minimum, the factors include the risks of homelessness, landlessness, marginalisation, erosion of health status, loss of access to common property and shared resources, decreased food security, and social disarticulation.
6. External assistance involves institutional co-operation and is technically targeted to effectively reach those people facing the highest risk of impoverishment.
7. Displacement programs not only repay their full replacement social and economic costs to the displaced, but improve their livelihood.
8. Enhanced attention is given estimating the social and cultural costs of displacement and maintaining and reinforcing their socio-cultural priorities. Specific means should be sought to facilitate the ability of the displaced to create and accumulate social capital.
9. A broad accounting is used to estimate wealth prior to resettlement and to promptly restore the wealth of the displaced, based on not only produced assets, but also human, natural and social capital.
10. Land-for-land compensation is made to displacees, with sufficient lead time and resources to rebuild lost or damaged productive systems. Land quality as well as quality is taken into account. When rebuilding is not possible, new, viable economic activities are initiated.
11. External assistance is effectively channelled through local institutions accountable to the displaced, thereby reducing the inherent political risks, especially those of exacerbating factionalism.
13. Inter-institutional arrangements, financing, and legal arrangements are provided to design, implement, manage and monitor appropriate land and water use systems and displacees assume control of and manage the resources through their own institutions.
14. Local notions of entitlement to common property and community resources are recognised and enhanced. Such actions are extremely important for maintaining the socio-cultural and ecological integrity of indigenous cultures. These resources often play an integral part of the economic strategies of the poorest.
15. Alternative, acceptable common resources are provided in consultation with affected populations.
16. Displacees are able to maintain environmentally sustainable access to the local natural resources at least comparable to those in their home area.
17. Health risks are diminished by using a thorough planning process including provisions for initial risk assessment, buffering health risks through insurance and appropriate institutions, conducting routine health surveillance and health auditing, and incorporating health professionals within the displaced population in the development process.
18. Sufficient financing is provided to support a broad spectrum of alternatives identified as improving livelihoods.
19. Long term, job creation strategies emphasise community-based and community-supported projects, including but not limited to micro-projects
20. Performance criteria and monitoring are established for resettlement, including routine, regular measures of displacee satisfaction, measures of the transformations of their livelihood, and the ability of the peoples to rebuild adaptive strategies and social capital and to self-manage the post relocation conditions.
21. Finally, the technical discussion agreed that rehabilitation of the displaced can be considered successful when assistance focuses on long term results rather than short-term viability, when affected communities become full beneficiaries of development strategies, when adequately funded local institutions are enhanced and replace the responsibilities of facilitating agencies, and when, at the minimum, the displaced have improved their standard of living compared to their pre-displacement situation.