Xining Flood and Watershed Management Project

Xining Flood and Watershed Management Project

（P101829）

Social Assessment Report

West Development Research Center, Central University for Nationalities

2008.8.5 Beijing

78

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Contents

I Research Task, Methodology and Process 1

I-I Task and Task Based Point 1

I-II Assessment Quantification and Methodology 2

I-III Social Assessment research Process 3

I-IV Preliminary Conclusion 9

I-V Acknowledge and commitment 11

II Project Introduction and Regional Economic and Social Development 12

II-I Project and Project Area 12

II-II Regional economic and social development Situation 14

II-II-I Natural Geographical Environment and Ecology 14

II-II-II Climate 15

II-II-III Human Geography 16

II-II-IV Economic and Social Development Status Quo 18

II-III Severe Environmental and Ecological Situation 20

II-III-I Urgent Need to Improve Water Environment 20

II-III-II Frail Natural Ecology 21

II-III-III Prominent Contradictory Between Economic Development and Environmental Protection 22

II-III-IV The Necessity to Carry out This Project Construction 22

II-IV Conclution 22

III Review of Relevant Policies 24

III-I The Chinese Government Policy Spirit 24

III-II The Current Laws and Regulations in China 24

III-II-I Ethnic and Religious Laws 25

III-II-II General Laws and Regulations 26

III-II-III Resettlement Policies and Measures of Immigration 26

III-III World Bank Policy 29

VI Stakeholder Analysis 30

IV-I Identification the Stakeholder of the Project 30

IV-II Stakeholder analysis 30

IV-II-I Owner 30

IV-II-II People’s Government of Qinghai Province 31

IV-III-III Xining City and Three Counties People’s Government Subordinate by It 31

IV-II-IV World Bank 32

IV-II-V Designer and Builder 32

IV-II-VI Project Area Residents 32

IV-II-VII Other Underprivileged Groups in the Project Area 33

IV-II-VIII Analysis on the Relationship Between Stakeholders in the Project Area 33

V Land System and Mode of Living 38

V-I Land System Change 38

V-II Land Laws and Regulations 38

V-III Nature Resources, Livelihoods and Land Use Structure 39

V-IV The Impact and Possible Consequences of the Projects on Their Livelihood and Land System 41

VI Ethnic Minorities 45

VI-I The Connection between project and Ethnic Minority 45

VI-I-I The Overview of Ethnic Minorities in the project areas 45

VI-I-II The Connection Between Project and Ethnic Minority 46

VI-II History, Culture and Livelihood of Ethnic Minorities 47

VI-II-I Tibetan 47

VI-II-II Hui people 50

VI-III Ethnic Relations in Project Area 52

VI-IV The Main Attention Point of the Ethnic Minority Residents to the Project 53

VII Poverty and Gender 56

VII-I Poverty Situation in the Project Area 56

VII-I-I Overview 56

VII-I-II Causes of Poverty Analysis 56

VII-I-III The impact on the poor of the project 57

VII-II Women 58

VII-II-I Women's Quality and the Traditional Labor Division 58

VII-II-II The Association Between Project and Women 58

VIII Institutional capacity building 60

VIII-I Institution Status 60

VIII-II Institute Improvement 60

VIII-III Capacity Building 61

VIII-III-I Enhance Learning 61

VIII-III-II Experience 62

IX Public Participation 63

IX-I Information Publicity 63

IX-II Project Demand and Attitude 63

IX-III Participation Scheme and Mechanisms 65

IX-III-I Participation Scheme 65

IX-III-II Safeguard Mechanism of participation 66

X Monitoring and Assessment of Social Economic Effect 70

X-I The Target, Subject and Task of Monitoring and Assessment 70

X-II The Basis, Principles and Main Contents of Monitoring and Assessment 71

X-III Basement Investigation 72

X-IV Monitoring and Assessment Index 72

X-IV-I Community Monitoring and Assessment Index 72

X-IV-II Farmers Monitoring and Assessment Index 73

X-V Monitoring and Assessment Cycle and Information Publicity 73

XI Conclusion and Suggestion 75

XI-II Project Necessities and Social Suitability 75

XI-II Project Participation Design 75

XI-III Gender, Poverty and Development 76

XI-IV Ethnic Minorities 77

XI-V Immigration and Land Policy Framework 77

XI-VI Cultural Relics 78

XI-VII Institutional Capacity-building and Public Participation 78

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I Research Task, Methodology and Process

I-I Task and Task Based Point

In November 2007, based on the recommendation of World Bank Project Preparation Group ,Xining World Bank Project Office (hereinafter using abbreviation the entrusting party) entrusts Professor Zhang Haiyang and Jia Zhongyi ,Who are director and deputy director of West Development Research Center, Central University for Nationalities (hereinafter using abbreviation the entrusted party)to have social influence assessment on Xining Flood and Watershed Management Project.The entrusted party accepted formal commission on December December 2, 2007.

According to the TOR provided by Xining Project Office, entrusted party holds that the following tasks are what should be undertaken.

First, Have integral Assessment on the social, economical and cultural effect that the Project(Engineering Control and ecological management included) have on the residents in Xining project area, including one city, three counties, and those live along the riverside of the three main branch river of Huangshui and its 28 gullies.

Second, Have basic description of the Project, Project area, especially the Population Scale , Distribution ,Administration unit, Living style, Ethnic composition ,Cultural characteristics and Economic and social development condition of the residents influenced by the Project.

Third, Identify the category, mode and degree of opportunities and risks brought to the minority ethnic residents and their community culture, meanwhile, put forward improvement suggestion referring to resident participative management organized by community.

Fourth, Write social Assessment Report based on the above mentioned and make assessment suggestion on whether the Project can define ethnic minorities development plan.

According to the agreement made by World Bank and the entrusting party, the entrusted party should submit Work Outline in Chinese to Xining Municipal People's Government and World Bank. Besides, the entrusted party should complete the main part of field research and confirm whether the establishment of Ethnic Minorities Development Plan is needed by the end of February. The first draft of the social Assessment Report will be submitted to Xining Municipal People's Government in March beginning (if needed, an ethnic minorities development plan will be included) and complete necessary supplement research as well as submit the Chinese and English final draft(electronic document included) named “Xining Flood Prevention and Watershed Management Project Social Assessment Report”(if needed, an ethnic minorities development plan will be included).The revised draft will be completed in 20 days after pre-evaluation and the final draft should be completed in 10 days after formal evaluation.

From the last ten days of November 2007 to the middle ten days of January 2008, the entrusted party did field research on the project area for two times by a 9-person assessment group, including Zhang Haiyang, Jia Zhongyi (Miao Ethinic Group, associate professor), Lamaocuo (female, Tibatan, research fellow),Lu ShunYuan (Tibatan, associate research fellow),E Zongrong (Tu Ethinic Group, associate research fellow) and other four Graduate Students named Li Jianming (Tu Ethinic Group), Sui Yanqing, Liu xueli (Female,Tujia Ethinic Group ) and Yanying ( Female, Man Ethinic Group ).

This assessment investigation will be mainly based on three sorts of documents. One is Policies and Regulations of the Safeguard on Ethnic Minorities' Rights and Interests as well as reasonable resources utilizing and exploiting strategies (e.g. land, forest and water) from central and local governments; the other is World Bank Social Safeguard policies ,especially ethic minority policies; the last is “The Feasibility Study of Project”(FS) provided by Xining Project Office, alongside which gets reference from “Environmental Impact Assessment Draft”,“Immigration Action Plan Draft”,“Participatory Management Manual Draft”in Watershed Management part and brief instruction to dams above 15 meters in Project Area.

I-II Assessment Quantification and Methodology

The entrusted party has rich social assessment experience and participated in quite a few World Bank Loan Project in China, such as Reservoir, Highway, Forestation, Watershed Management and Railway, etc. We are familiar to World Bank Standard and have sufficient knowledge on Chinese laws, regulations and related policies; furthermore, we have understanding on the situation and demand of Chinese ethnic minorities and their language culture. All the four graduated students from Central University for Nationalities can develop community research work independently, since they have multiple ethnic culture background and field experience; besides, they all have received Anthropology, Sociology and History training and are familiar to the environment of project area. Totally considering factors like gender, ethnic group, knowledge background and project experience, the entrusted party consist of a research group with multiple subject background, also include 8 ethnic minority members, 3 of them are female, 5 are Qinghai natives, so this group is enough to meet the qualification standard of the social assessment project.

Based on the Holistic and Comparative Study of Anthropology and Sociology, the entrusted party mainly applied Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) during the assessment research, collecting data from field work and statistical data from information list, using methodologies like participant observation, focus interview, focus group interview, adding the analysis of historical documents, policies and regulations, therefore, it will satisfy the writing requirement of social assessment and Ethnic Minority Development Plan.

This assessment has covered the whole Project area with emphasis on basic community and paid prominent attention to nationality and religion. The assessment group has labor division and cooperation as well as share data with immigration and participatory management group.

On county level assessment research, the group mainly held forum with local Project Office, Minorities and Religion Bureau, Women union, Poverty Relief office, Civil Affairs Bureau, Agricultural Bureau, Statistical Bureau and gets data from them. On town level assessment research, the group mainly collected data by interviewing the local leading cadres and investigating the economic and social development situation of the villages managed by them, meanwhile, studied the local ethnic cultural resources and their development demands. Community research mainly consists of two parts, including informal discussion with villager representatives, community baseline survey and household survey. The villager representatives who were invited to the informal discussion included village cadres, women, youth, old people, country teachers, religious personages, etc, fixed on the overview of community, development thought, sensitive problem, previous project experience ,demand and suggestion aiming at this project and so on. The questionnaires were completed by the villager representatives and village cadres. Household survey consisted of questionnaires and deep interviews, and the samples covered different economic status, livelihood,, family scale and member structure, ethnic composition and the degree affected by the Project.

The above mentioned research and data collected will meet the social assessment objective; hereby, the entrusted party should appreciate the support from all local project office and residents there.

I-III Social Assessment research Process

The entrusted party did two times field research. From November 29 to December 3 ,2007,professor Zhang Haiyang and Jia Zhongyi went to Shuer Village in Qiaotou Town ,Datong Autonomous County of Hui and Tu Nationalities; Hanggou Drainage Area in Huangyuan County; Huoshao Channel, Baojia Channel, Liberation Dyke in Nanchuanhe Drainage Area, Urban district, Daya Channel in Xichuanhe and Urban district of Beichuanhe to investigate the ecological conditions , natural geographical environment, community arrangement and measures and results of previous project in the target watershed .Meanwhile, they communicated with the project office of city and county level, collecting data on nationalities, statistics, geography ,local history and project materials, consulting the target, task and coordination with the City Project Office.

From January 4 to 15, 2008, all 9 social assessment group members met in Xining to develop formal field research and cooperated with immigration and small drainage area participatory management group under level best coordination of the City Project Office. The three groups reached mutual communication and cooperation. The social assessment group members attended the participatory management field activity in Huoxi village(Han People)and Huodong village(Han People)in Huoshao Channel, Nanchuanhe Drainage Area. The assessment group also and arranged members to attend community research in the South City organized by immigration group; Meanwhile, the assessment group have a general study on Hui ethnic Group Village in Wanfeng new village,Quanerwan Channel in Huangyuan county, Hujigou(han people) small drainage area and Daitong Village(Tibetan),Shuobei Town Dongxiang River. Furthermore, the group had deep investigation on 11 different communities, which are Erma Village(Tibetan) in Dongxia Town , Yuanshuer Village(Hui people)in Qiaotou Town, and QiaoergouVillage(Hui people) in Liangjiao Town, Datong County; Qingquanyi village(Hui and Han people), Qingquanervillage（Hui,Han people and Tibetan）in Lushaer Town,Qingshan Village(han people) in XibaoTown,Nalongxi Village（Han people and Tibetan）in BoHuang Town,Huangyuan County and Shangye Village(Han people),Dujiagou Village(Han people)in South City New District. Accompanied by the local People’s Political Consultative Conference member and the Project officer, the social assessment group had informal discussion with living Buddha, Tibetan monk representatives and persons in charge of the famous “Tar Temple”.

The above mentioned research involved 3 counties, 2 districts,8 towns and 17 communities. Basically, it covers all minority ethnic towns and communities, multi-ethnic residential communities and important religious place. All about 130 families accepted the family baseline research, over 70 multiple ethnic residents accepted the deep interview, 8 communities accepted the participatory demand assessment. (Attached list 1: Schedule of the Field Research Condition of Project Communities.)

To definite the validity of this social assessment, the entrusted party would like to introduce the detail process as follows:

1.Apply flexible investigation method according to the targets’ characteristics

The investigation applied the holistic method of Anthropology research view. Considering the distribution features of the target communities; we take villages in the project area as research unit. The main investigation methods we apply are: participate observation, interview, questionnaire, etc. based on the concerned fact that the local resident’s pattern is “big area inhabited by several nationalities and little region inhabited by one’s own”; therefore, the assessment group adopts the semi-structure questionnaires and interviews. The assessment group consisted of Hui,Miao,Tu,Han people and Tibetans, so we can arrange research members aiming at the different community residents characteristics. For instance, Maolacuo is a Tibetan from Qinghai Academy of Social Science, we mainly depended on her when investigating in Tibetan communities, she can have deep interview by her Tibetan language advantage. Besides, the group used different research method and questionnaire design during the investigation. For instance, we fully considered the different religious belief in different religious areas, so we added or canceled the relative questions on minority characteristics and their taboo culture in our questionnaire design.

2.Stepwise process and research layer upon layer

For the sake of the holistic assessment of the Project, the social assessment group based on cooperation and exchange with two other assessment groups to learn and complement each other, and developed investigating activity independently.[1]

Our work step is as follows, the main members of the studying group visited the Project Office, promoted work coordination and collected relative data and information. The research assistants follow the small drainage area participatory management group and immigration group instead, learning and observing their working process as well as paying preliminary visit to the target communities to grasp their local characteristics .They had to summarize the daily investigation condition ,comprehend relative data , finish investigation record and discuss the problems they find in the investigation . Besides, they should spare no effort to improve the investigating methods and daily efficiency.