From 3-7 January 1995, an international group of 70 specialists from 28 countries, including researchers, representatives of government and non-governmental organisations, assembled at the University of Oxford at the invitation of the Refugee Studies Programme, Queen Elizabeth House, to examine population displacement and impoverishment induced by efforts to generate sustainable social and economic development. Government efforts to promote economic growth, especially through the development of large-scale infrastructure, are necessary to counter poverty and to improve social services. In the last decade, the World Bank estimates that 90-100 million people have been displaced by urban, irrigation and power development projects alone. The proportion of people displaced by urban development is becoming greater than those displaced by large-scale infrastructure projects, such as dams; the number of people affected is far greater than those forced across national borders and defined as refugees. Along with human sufferings and socio-economic costs, such displacement can result in global humanitarian crises and will remain on national and international agenda. Development-induced displacement commonly unravels the underlying social fabric of a people, especially indigenous groups, by fragmenting social networks, weakening or dismantling families and whole communities, causing the loss of vital cultural knowledge, devaluing potentially irreplaceable biocultural diversity, debilitating authority systems, and reducing the capacity to self-manage and cope with uncertainty. Unchecked, it leads to loss of self-respect and cultural identity, and to loss of the physical and cultural resources needed to maintain even a minimal livelihood.

Findings

1.The failure to avoid displacement or opportunely mitigate involuntary resettlement will increase impoverishment, unemployment, exhaust natural resources, and lead to social and cultural disintegration of large segments of national populations.
2.Displacement-induced impoverishment takes many forms, including unemployment, homelessness, landlessness, increased morbidity and mortality, marginalization, food insecurity, loss of access to common property, social disintegration, and deprivation of human rights.
3.In the absence of a clear national policy to avoid or minimise displacement, some national governments have faced social unrest and have been forced to use their limited human and financial resources in prolonged confrontations. They have even faced international scrutiny for alleged human rights abuses.
4.In some cases, risks are being internationalised, as people displaced by development projects are forced to move across international borders to survive.
5.Governments which have not adequately dealt with the development of displaced people have failed to realise the full potential of their infrastructure projects to generate employment, relieve poverty, and promote social integration.
6.The problems associated with involuntary displacement have been exacerbated by faulty implementation of resettlement programmes and the inadequate training of personnel.
7.Many affected people were already poor, vulnerable, and socially discriminated are most likely to be subject to discrimination. While all displaced people are at a high risk of impoverishment, the risk is often disproportionately higher for children, women, the elderly, ethnic minorities, and indigenous people.
8.Because of inadequate and ill conceived planning and defective implementation in a number of projects, displaced people have become long-term economic, political and social liabilities.
9.Training of those responsible for implementing resettlement and rehabilitation programmes, building the institutions of those to be resettled as well as the host population who will receive them is critical to successful mitigation of displacement.
10.The affected populations also go beyond those who are physically relocated. They include the communities in areas to which people are relocated and their host societies.

Recommendations