Xiaolangdi Resettlement - A Model for the Future
Xiaolangdi Dam is of critical importance to China. It will provide flood control in the lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin to protect major infrastructure and 103 million people; control siltation in the 800-kilometer downstream channel of the river (so that levees will not have to be raised further for the next twenty years); provide irrigation for 2 million hectares; and generate 1,800 megawatts of hydropower. Constructing the dam and filling the reservoir will necessitate the resettlement of more than 180,000 people, the largest resettlement operations assisted by Bank financing.
A pathbreaking approach was taken to addressing the complexities of this resettlement operation. First, a separate project and a separate Bank credit were created, distinct from the dam project and loan, to ensure a high level of attention, staff inputs, and budgetary resources. The purpose of the project is to restore and improve the resettlers' income. To that end, the project will construct infrastructure and housing for 276 villages and ten towns; develop 11,100 hectares of new land, of which 7,000 will be irrigated; relocate 252 existing small industries and mines; and establish 84 new industries with 20,500 new jobs. The project will benefit about half a million people and create about 75,220 full-time jobs and about 37,400 part-time jobs. The economic rate of return for the overall project is estimated at 32 percent.
The Chinese have had success in other dam projects since the adoption of new policies and strategies, with Bank assistance, in the mid-1980s. In the nearly completed resettlement of 67,000 people at the Shuikou Hydroelectric project, also in eastern China, resettler incomes exceeded previous incomes by up to 10 percent within a year after transfer. So far, the experience from Xiaolangdi Dam shows that the income levels of the first 2,000 people resettled during the early construction have exceeded their previous incomes by 10 to 60 percent within one year.
Xiaolangdi has the highest resettlement budjet per person of any project in China and far above the average among resettlement projects. Unparalleled human resources have been put into the preparation of the extremely detailed resttlement plan. Five alternatives to the Xiaolangdi Dam were considered, but each would have required significantly greater resettlement, ranging from 250,000 to 930,000 people. Although resettlement always remains a difficult and unpredictable task, Xiaolangdi has minimized the number of people to be moved and has taken extensive precautionary measures to prevent impoverishment of the resettlers and, moreover, to improve their lives.
Excerpts from "Making Development Sustainable," a report prepared by the Environment Department of the World Bank, The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 1994.