Restoring the livelihoods of households affected by resettlement is fraught with challenges, so it is vital that mines begin the process early and carefully monitor to see what is working and what is not.
According to SRK Consulting, it is only quite recently that livelihood restoration has become a focus of attention where households or communities are resettled for mining or industrial projects. Strategies to help restore livelihoods employed by mines are therefore often not well-proven, and the effort invested frequently does not deliver the results expected.
“Livelihood restoration has become an increasingly critical element of a company’s resettlement action plan,” said Jessica Edwards, senior social scientist at SRK Consulting. “However, this aspect has in the past often been an afterthought, attended to only towards the end of implementing a Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) – at which time it is already too late to achieve its intended purpose.”
