Development and displacement

There is always tension between the need for development and the rights of people. Any large-scale development project, like highways and dams, will cause the displacement of large numbers of people. The trick is to do a cost-benefit analysis and decide just how vital a project is before going through with it and to always ensure that displaced people are adequately compensated. Pakistan has usually fallen short of this bare minimum. Funds for development projects are rarely used to provide compensation to those affected, who have to wait years for their promised payout. Now, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has finally spoken out about this issue and said that funding for the Diamer-Bhasha Dam has been put on hold because of this reason. This is a long overdue development and it is one that may prove successful. There is likely nothing that would spur the government into action than the possibility of the aid spigot being turned off.

International donor agencies have usually been complicit in the mistreatment of displaced people. Although promises of relocation and compensation are always made, organisations like the World Bank and the USAID have rarely followed through once funding for the project has been distributed. However, now that the weight of the ADB is behind this, perhaps, the government will be more considerate to the needs of people whose lives have been uprooted. But to ensure that its words are followed by action, the ADB will have to continue to deny funding until Pakistan meets it obligations.

The government, for its part, has blamed the land mafia for this turn of events. That is not a valid excuse. If land grabbers are indeed taking over this land prior to development projects, then it is the job of the government to prevent that. Either way, the buck stops at a government that is taking billions of dollars in development aid but is then unable or unwilling to give it to those people who have the greatest claim to it.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2013.