CRADLE TO GRAVE •
SUSTAINABLE WAYS TO
RESETTLE COMMUNITIES
In December 2019, the Department of Mineral Resources
and Energy (DMRE) published its Draft Mine Community
Resettlement Guidelines for comment – part of its process
to standardise resettlement practice in mining. Among the
stakeholders offering input is global consulting engineers and
scientists SRK Consulting.
“It is clear that resettlement is a growing concern during the
development of large public and private projects in sectors
like mining and energy,” says Jessica Edwards, senior social
scientist at SRK Consulting. “It is opportune that government
seeks to define a common approach for South Africa –
especially when managing involuntary displacement.”
According to Edwards physical and economic displacement
of a community is generally an irreversible step with serious
implications – both for the project-affected people and for
the developers whose projects demand access to land and
subsequently resettlement. International guidelines promote
avoidance of resettlement during project design wherever
possible. However, where resettlement cannot be avoided,
careful management is required to ensure positive and
sustainable outcomes for all involved.
Other African countries have been moving in a similar
direction to South Africa – to create manageable
frameworks in which resettlement can take place. One such
country is Guinea, where the rapid expansion of industries
such as bauxite mining was leading to more resettlement
activity.
“Without suitable legislation or a clearly defined and
enforced framework, resettlement in Guinea was happening
in an ad hoc fashion – often with unsustainable results for
those affected,” says Edwards. “Using our experience of
managing resettlement processes in a number of countries,
we were able to develop a national framework for Guinea,”
she adds.
Among the related projects in which SRK has been involved
are two resettlement action plans for hydro power schemes in
Cameroon and Sierra Leone – as well as for a cement plant in
the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“International financial institutions apply their own strict
standards to resettlement practices linked to the projects
they fund, so it is also vital that projects understand and
comply with these requirements,” says SRK Consulting senior
social scientist Adel Malebana.
Using its insights into good practice in resettlement, SRK
is contributing to the DMRE’s engagement process with a
number of specific recommendations. Among its suggestions
are that the draft guidelines make a clear distinction between
the main types of resettlement agreements: physical,
communal and economic displacement.
An agreement signed with individual households relating to
their physical displacement, or with business owners relating
to their economic displacement, details the compensation
provided for losses of shelter, assets and livelihoods. In these
cases, it is very important that Project Affected People have
individual agreements directly with the company or project
proponent.
On the other hand, there are agreements with communities
who are indirectly affected by resettlement – who can be
said to experience communal displacement. They need to
be compensated for the loss of ecosystem services, access
and mobility when land use is restricted due to mining. This
type of compensation will then be included in a communal
agreement.
Furthermore, Malebana says that resettlement projects
often lead to the loss not only of housing, agricultural
land and other amenities, but also cultural heritage sites
and graves. “The draft guidelines are silent on heritage
or intangible issues and should consider them,” says
Malebana.
There is also an assumption in the draft guidelines that
resettlement projects will mainly occur before mining
activities commence. However, mining projects often take
a phased approach and communities may only need to be
resettled at future phases of the project – if and when project
expansions are considered viable, for example.
“In our written submission, we also proposed that a
standardised valuation matrix – to determine compensation
rates for economic displacement – be developed and
published on an annual basis,” says Edwards. This would
facilitate a standardised and more transparent compensation
process.” •
SRK
SRK’s senior social scientists, Adel Malebana and Jessica Edwards.
www. africanmining.co.za
African Mining Publication
African Mining
African Mining • May 2020 • 53