Establishing project management guidelines for successfully managing resettlement projects

Abstract

Although millions of people globally are displaced annually, resettlement has a poor history for achieving the objective of leaving people who are resettled 'no worse off after project implementation than before'. While excellent guidelines and policies for resettlement have been established, resettlement/displacement projects still do not succeed in resettling affected peoples in a way that they are eventually better off. Consensus was reached by a Delphi panel of experts on a set of guidelines for resettlement projects. It is proposed that, supplementing the existing frameworks and guidelines for resettlement with well-established project management principles - including a phased project management approach - the chances of executing a resettlement project successfully are much higher. This paper proposes an improved framework and valuable guidelines for future resettlement projects