ABSTRACT
Since the early to mid-1980s China has engaged in experimenting with new financial mechanisms, to mitigate and prevent the impoverishment risks likely to affect the livelihoods of people displaced by development projects and, instead, to achieve their resettlement with development. The conceptual premise for those experiments was the realization that compensation as repayment for the losses suffered by those displaced was insufficient to protect them from poverty. It became obvious that financial investment allocations, additional to repaying the losses, were indispensable to enable re-development. Mechanisms for benefit-sharing targeted deliberately at populations displaced had to be introduced.
With the major transformations in the Chinese economy over the past 30–35 years, the use of such mechanisms as tools for China’s resettlement policy has expanded. Evidence has proven their effectiveness in restoring and improving the livelihoods of people compulsorily resettled. However, there is still much room for the investment and benefit-sharing tools to be further improved, in terms of extending their application, increasing the level of support to resettlers, shifting the focus from cash payments to expanding income earning capability, and exploring new and additional investment options in post-displacement economic and cultural recovery.
