Resettlement writing
Notes on the practical gap between what the safeguard standards require and what a project can actually evidence when the completion audit arrives. Written against IFC PS-5 and World Bank ESS-5, with sources.
By Olule Solomon · Lead Consultant, ValueSpace
- 9 min
What is a Resettlement Action Plan? A practitioner's guide
What a RAP is, when a lender requires one, what it must contain, and why most are judged on evidence rather than intent.
- 10 min
IFC Performance Standard 5 explained: eligibility, entitlements and evidence
PS-5's three eligibility categories, what each is owed, and the requirements projects most often fail to evidence.
- 9 min
World Bank ESS-5 vs IFC PS-5: what actually differs
The two standards most RAPs are written against, compared on scope, eligibility, valuation and what each lender reviews.
- 8 min
Full replacement cost: the valuation rule projects get wrong most often
What replacement cost means under PS-5 and ESS-5, why depreciation cannot be deducted, and how to evidence the basis.
- 8 min
The cut-off date: setting it, disclosing it, and defending it later
Eligibility in a RAP turns on one date. How to fix it, how to disclose it so it holds, and what happens when it slips.
- 9 min
Designing a grievance redress mechanism that a lender will accept
Why resettlement generates the most complaints of any safeguard issue, and what separates a working GRM from a logbook.
- 9 min
Livelihood restoration: the part of a RAP that outlives the payment
Compensation is a transaction; livelihood restoration is an outcome. How LRPs are designed, monitored and closed out.
- 9 min
The PAP census and socioeconomic survey: getting the baseline right
The census fixes eligibility and the baseline everything else is measured against. What it must capture, and who gets missed.
- 9 min
The RAP completion audit: evidencing compliance you cannot reconstruct
What a completion audit tests, why reconstruction after the fact fails, and the records that have to exist from day one.
- 9 min
Costing a RAP: why resettlement budgets are wrong before they are approved
What a resettlement budget must contain, the line items projects systematically omit, and why contingency is not padding.
- 10 min
Reconciling compensation payments: the evidence gap nobody budgets for
Paying compensation and proving you paid it are different problems. How disbursement files are reconciled back to entitlements.
- 9 min
Choosing a resettlement site: the decision that determines everything after it
Replacement housing fails on site selection more than on construction. What to assess, who to involve, and what disqualifies a site.
- 9 min
Gender in resettlement: how compensation reaches households but not women
Household-level enumeration and single-payee compensation systematically strip women's independent claims. What to do instead.
- 8 min
ESIA and RAP sequencing: why the order these are done in decides the cost
The RAP depends on ESIA outputs it is usually procured in parallel with. What that costs, and how to sequence it properly.
- 10 min
Uganda land acquisition law and IFC PS-5: reconciling the two
Where Ugandan compulsory acquisition law meets the lender standards, where it falls short, and how a RAP bridges the gap.
- 9 min
Resettlement on linear projects: transmission lines, roads and pipelines
Linear projects displace thousands economically and few physically. Why that inverts almost every assumption in a standard RAP.
- 8 min
Graves, shrines and chance finds: cultural heritage in a resettlement
Relocating graves is the part of a RAP that cannot be rushed or costed by formula. What PS-8 requires alongside PS-5.
- 9 min
Monitoring a resettlement: indicators that measure outcomes, not activity
Most resettlement monitoring counts what was delivered. Completion audit asks what changed. Building indicators for the second.
Free entitlement matrix template
The table at the centre of every RAP — 15 loss categories, eligibility by tenure, valuation basis and the standard behind each row.
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