Read how we think before
you decide whether to hire us.
Independent advisory on resettlement action plans, replacement-cost valuation, completion audits and grievance systems — written against IFC PS-5 and World Bank ESS-5 rather than against any one national schedule.
The work is published, with sources
Most advisory pages ask you to trust a list of past clients you cannot call and a project count you cannot verify. This one does not have one, so it offers something you can actually check: a public body of technical writing on exactly the questions an engagement would turn on, every substantive claim cited to the standard or the judgment behind it.
Read a few before you make contact. If the reasoning is not the reasoning you want on your project, you will have found that out for free, which is a better outcome for both of us than a first meeting.
What we take on
RAP preparation and review
Census and socio-economic survey design, entitlement matrix, valuation basis, budget structure and the sequencing that decides whether any of it survives review. Either drafting the plan or reviewing one already drafted before it goes to a lender.
What a RAP has to establish →Replacement-cost valuation review
Benchmarking a statutory rate schedule against full replacement cost, asset by asset, and documenting the gap and how it was closed. This is the single most common finding at lender review, and it is almost always found late.
Full replacement cost →Completion audit and compliance readiness
Testing a resettlement against what an independent auditor actually samples — evidence of disclosure, payment reconciliation, grievance closure, livelihood outcomes — before the audit rather than during it.
The RAP completion audit →Grievance and engagement systems
Designing the multi-tier grievance mechanism, the stakeholder engagement plan and the confidential GBV/SEA referral pathway as one connected record, so a complaint raised in a public meeting is traceable to its resolution.
Designing a GRM a lender will accept →Digital delivery of a RAP
Moving a resettlement off spreadsheets onto a system where every change is attributed and time-stamped — whether that is SmartLARMS or an instrument you already own. Includes data model review, migration from existing registers, and field team training.
Why RAP software →
How an engagement is scoped
- A conversation first, unpaid. Tell us the project, the stage it is at, and what is worrying you about it. If it is not work we should be doing, we will say so and point you at whoever should.
- A written scope with a fixed fee. Deliverables stated as testable conditions rather than as effort, so "adequate" is not decided after the money is spent — the same standard our own RAP terms of reference template asks you to hold a consultant to.
- Your data stays yours. Any register, valuation or dataset we touch is delivered back in an open format with the audit trail intact, and ownership vests in you. Obligations outlive a contract; a dataset you cannot query or defend is not a deliverable.