RESETTLEMENT POLICY FRAMEWORK (RPF)
FOR THE
LIBERIA SMALLHOLDER TREECROP REVITALIZATION SUPPORT PROJECT (STCRSP)
DRAFT REPORT
17 October 2011
AGRER S.A.
Etudes et Conseils
Brussels
LIBERIA SMALLHOLDER TREECROP REVITALIZATION SUPPORT PROJECT (STCRSP)Table of Content
List of Tables / iiAcronyms/ Abbreviations / ii
executive summary / iii
1. / introduction: project description and methodology / 1
2. / principles and objectives of world bank OP 4.12 / 4
3. / legal and institutional policies and guidelines / 8
4. / estimated population and categories of affected persons / 15
5. / eligibility criteria for affected persons / 22
6. / methods for valuing affected assets / 23
7. / organizational procedures for delivery of entitlements / 27
8. / implementation arrangements / 31
9. / grievance redress arrangements / 33
10. / funding arrangements / 38
11. / consultation and participation mechanisms / 46
12. / monitoring arrangements / 49
13. / disclosure requirements / 51
References / 52
annexes
A. administrative annexes
A-1 / TOR
A-2 / ITINERARY AND CONSULTATIONS AT NATIONAL LEVEL
A-3 / LIST of people met during field consultations
b. technical annexes
T-1 / entitlement matrix moa for tree crop loss/ damage
T-2 / Development of Resettlement (Action) Plans or Abbreviated resettlement Plans
T-3 / Implementation Process including Civil Works
T-4 / Smalllholder Land Use Report
List of tables
Table 1 / Comparison between World Bank and Liberian Laws and Mitigation MeasuresTable 2 / Total targeted acreage and direct beneficiaries
Table 3 / Acreage and direct beneficiaries targeted by Project year – Cacao/ coffee
Table 4 / Acreage and Direct beneficiaries targeted by Project year - rubber
Table 5 / Acreage and direct beneficiaries targeted by Project year – oil palm
Table 6 / Eligibility criteria
Table 7 / General guidelines and methods for costs preparation
Table 8 / Eligibility criteria
Table 9 / Entitlement Matrix
Table 10 / Proposed schedule for Grievance Redress
Table 11 / Itemisation of budget
Acronyms and Abbreviatons
CDA / Cooperative Development AgencyEPA / Environmental Protection Agency
EPO / Equatorial Palm Oil
ESMF / Environmental and Social Management Framework
ESMP / Environmental and Social Management (Mitigation) Plan
EU / European Union
FO / Farmer Organization
GOL / Government of Liberia
Ha / hectare
LISGIS / Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services
MARCO / Morris American Rubber Company
MLME / Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy
M&E / Monitoring and Evaluation,
MOA / Ministry of Agriculture
MOF / Ministry of Finance
NGO / Non-Governmental Organization
PAP / Project Affected People
PIU / Project Implementation Unit
PMU / Program Management Unit
RAP / Resettlement Action Plan
RPF / Resettlement Policy Framework
SIA / Social Impact Assessment
SRC / Salala Rubber Company
STCRSP / Smallholder Tree Crop Revitalization Support Project
TOR / Terms of Reference
WB / World Bank
Executive Summary
The proposed project will be the first, preparatory stage of a long term pro-poor growth program focused on developing the tree crop sector in Liberia. The target group will be poor smallholders in the main country’s tree crop producing counties, with particular attention given to the participation of women and youth.
This RPF was developed as part of the accompanying reports on Environmental and Social management Framework (ESMF) and on the Social Impact Assessment (SIA) conducted in Liberia in July-September 2011.
The RPF is a requirement for projects that may entail involuntary resettlement as mentioned above. Such involuntary resettlement may imply issues of compensation, land acquisition, impact on people’s livelihoods, restriction of access and restriction of access to assets including economic and natural resources. Besides this requirement, the RPF presents an opportunity for project stakeholders on how to address compensations issues relating to affected properties, livelihoods, land matters and incomes generated through project implementation and has the potential to make PAPs better off than what their previous conditions were prior to the commencement of the project if mitigation measures are well developed, effectively implemented and consistently evaluated and monitored.
The policy objectives of OP 4.12 on Involuntary Resettlement relevant for this Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF) comprise the following broad principles:
(a) Involuntary resettlement should be avoided where feasible, or minimized, exploring all viable alternative project designs;
(b) Where it is not feasible to avoid resettlement, resettlement activities should be conceived and executed as sustainable development programs, providing sufficient investment resources to enable the persons displaced by the project to share in project benefits. Displaced persons3should be meaningfully consulted and should have opportunities to participate in planning and implementing resettlement programs;
(c) Displaced persons should be assisted in their efforts to improve their livelihoods and standards of living or at least to restore them, in real terms, to pre-displacement levels or to levels prevailing prior to the beginning of project implementation, whichever is higher.
The RPF addresses the issues of estimated population and categories of project affected people (PAP), the consultation and participation mechanisms, their eligibility criteria and methods for valuing their assets, the organizational procedures for the delivery of entitlements, implementation, funding, grievance redress mechanism and M&E arrangements. The RPF is prepared to take care of any potential social impacts related to land, restriction of access and livelihood impacts.
Agrer s.a / RESETTLEMENT POLICY FRAMEWORK / iLIBERIA SMALLHOLDER TREECROP REVITALIZATION SUPPORT PROJECT (STCRSP)
1. introduction: project description and methodology
Introduction
The Government of Liberia is exploring the feasibility of a World Bank supported agricultural development project – the Smallholder Tree Crop Revitalization Support Project (STCRSP), with the principal objective of improving the income opportunities of poor farmers by a combination of rehabilitating unproductive farms, undertaking replanting and new planting programs, facilitating future replanting and development programs, and improved financing mechanisms and institutional arrangements. The proposed STCRSP has been identified in response to this request.
The proposed project activities include rehabilitation of existing farms owned by small holders in cooperatives through various support mechanisms, rehabilitation or development of nurseries, rehabilitation of feeder roads and reconstruction of small bridges and office refurbishment. These activities have potential social safeguards implications and could lead to impacts that would need to be mitigated.
As a result, the proposed project has triggered the World Bank policy on involuntary resettlement, OP 4.12 which aims at reducing adverse social impacts associated with project development and implementation and outlining mitigations measures where avoidance of impacts would not be possible. The GOL has responded to this policy by preparing a Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF) to serve as guidance for the project since the actual sites for project intervention are not known at the early project preparation stage. The GOL through the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) is applying part of the fund secured to prepare this RPF.
Project Description
The following is a short description of the Project’s main features, for more details refer to Annex A-1.
The main characteristics of the Liberian tree crop sector at present are the old age of plantations, as there have been no significant replanting activities for the last twenty five years, and their low productivity. The proposed project will be the first, preparatory stage of a long term pro-poor growth program focused on developing the tree crop sector. The target group will be poor smallholders in the main country’s tree crop producing counties, with particular attention given to the participation of women and youth.
Objectives
The proposed project’s development objective is “to increase incomes and productive assets of poor smallholder tree crop farmers by facilitating their access to finance, markets and inputs, and strengthening their organizations, and prepare a national development program for the various tree crops through testing various technical options and institutional and financial mechanisms.”
To achieve such an objective, the project is structured around three components: (i)Smallholder Tree Crops (cocoa/coffee, oil palm & rubber) Revitalization; (ii)Institutional Building and Preparation of Future Large Scale Tree Crop Development Program; and (iii)Project Coordination and Management.
Components
Component 1: Smallholder Tree Crop Revitalization
Component one has three sub-components focusing on cocoa, coffee, oil palm and rubber revitalization. The activities to be implemented under the component include rehabilitation of existing small farms, new planting, and promotion of improved marketing and value chain system. Other activities include the strengthening of farmer-based organizations at all levels through provision of technical and managerial advice, capacity strengthening of commercial banks to provide financial services appropriate to the needs of small holder farmers and development of nurseries at the village level and seed gardens. To enhance the FOs’ bulking and marketing functions, the project would enhance FOs abilities to access finance from internal and external sources. The component will also support the establishment and strengthening of farmer organizations (oil palm blocks associations, cooperatives); (iv) provision of training and technical advice to small farmers; (v) limited infrastructure rehabilitation (access roads and related small bridges and drainage structures) wherever it is critical to provide access to groups of farms; and (vi) the establishment of small scale processing facilities for the farmers’ run plantation -where no modern mills are present.
Component 2: Institutional Building and Preparation of Future Large Scale Tree Crop Development Program
The component would aim at: (i) strengthening the main public and private institutions involved in project planning, coordination and implementation, particularly: the MoA; the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA); institutions in charge of securing access to land (Ministry of Lands, Mine and Energy -MLME; Land commission -LC) and of agriculture research; (ii)preparing a follow-up large scale smallholder tree crop development program; and (iii)contributing to the strengthening and effective performance of the MoA’s Programs Management Unit (PMU) that serves all projects implemented by the MoA, and of which the project coordination team would be part. The component has three main sub components: (a) Institution Building (b) Preparing Future Large Scale Smallholder Tree Crop Development Programs and (c) Project Preparation Facility.
Component 3: Project Coordination and Management
The objectives of this component are to: (i) ensure an effective strategic and operational planning and monitoring and implementation of the STCRSP project; (ii)ensure an efficient coordination amongst the two “technical” components of the project on one hand and the various sources of funding and implementation partners within and outside MoA on the other hand; and (iii)adequately monitor the STCRSP implementation progress and evaluate of its final results and impacts on smallholders. This component has two main sub-components: (a) Strategic planning, coordination and implementation support; and (b) Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), Information and Knowledge sharing.
Methodology
The methods applied for developing this RPF were both qualitative and quantitative. Particular focus was on literature review, interviews using questionnaires, focus group discussions, stakeholders’ workshops and key informant interviews (see Annex A-2 and Annex A-3 for a list of stakeholder consulted).
These varied tools for data collection provided a wide scope to reach the different categories of people for the purpose of developing this RPF. In addition, the ESMF and SIA conducted in conjunction with the RPF and the Report on Securing smallholder Land Rights commissioned by the borrower and the Bank (Annex T-4) provided the larger framework of the methodology used.
2. principles and objectives of world bank op 4.12[1]
The RPF is a requirement for projects that may entail involuntary resettlement as mentioned above. Such involuntary resettlement may imply issues of compensation, land acquisition, impact on people’s livelihoods, restriction of access and restriction of access to assets including economic and natural resources. Besides this requirement, the RPF presents an opportunity for project stakeholders on how to address compensations issues relating to affected properties, livelihoods, land matters and incomes generated through project implementation and has the potential to make PAPs better off than what their previous conditions were prior to the commencement of the project if mitigation measures are well developed, effectively implemented and consistently evaluated and monitored.
The policy objectives of OP 4.12 on Involuntary Resettlement relevant for this Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF) are as follows:
(a) Involuntary resettlement should be avoided where feasible, or minimized, exploring all viable alternative project designs;
(b) Where it is not feasible to avoid resettlement, resettlement activities should be conceived and executed as sustainable development programs, providing sufficient investment resources to enable the persons displaced by the project to share in project benefits. Displaced persons3should be meaningfully consulted and should have opportunities to participate in planning and implementing resettlement programs;
(c) Displaced persons should be assisted in their efforts to improve their livelihoods and standards of living or at least to restore them, in real terms, to pre-displacement levels or to levels prevailing prior to the beginning of project implementation, whichever is higher.
In the context of the proposed STCRSP Project, Given that the Project aims at establishing effective community consultation mechanisms for its sub-projects, involuntary taking of land would be avoided as much as possible, i.e. any action that would be taken without displaced persons’ informed consent or power of choice. This issue was also discussed in the parallel Social Impact Assessment Report.
The resettlement policy framework includes measures to ensure that the displaced persons are:
(i) informed about their options and rights pertaining to resettlement;
(ii) consulted on, offered choices among, and provided with technically and economically feasible resettlement alternatives; and
(iii) provided prompt and effective compensation at full replacement costfor losses of assetsattributable directly to the project.
If the impacts include physical relocation, the resettlement plan or resettlement policy framework includes measures to ensure that the displaced persons are:
(i) provided assistance (such as moving allowances) during relocation; and
(ii) provided with residential housing, or housing sites, or, as required, agricultural sites for which a combination of productive potential, locational advantages, and other factors is at least equivalent to the advantages of the old site.
Where necessary to achieve the objectives of the policy, the resettlement plan or resettlement policy framework also includes measures to ensure that displaced persons are: