[Newsletter Contents]

Scudder: 40-80 Million Displaced "Could Well Be A Conservative Figure"

Commissioner Thayer Scudder could not attend the Final WCD Forum meeting
because he was attending his wife's broken ankle. But staying at home, he said, gave
him the opportunity at last to work nonstop on his own book, in which he draws on
his lifetime of experience as an anthropologist of displaced peoples.

An excerpt:

"A disquieting example of the extent to which people involuntarily displaced by dams have been ignored by project authorities and their governments is that no accurate figures exist of the numbers involved... In another case, the (World) Bank assumed no people had been removed when in fact a number of indigenous families had been displaced... When figures are available they are more apt to be underestimates than overestimates. (At) Kariba, 57,000 people were eventually resettled as opposed to an initial estimate of 23,000. ...Even leaving aside such estimates from independent researchers, the estimates of the World Bank team suggest that the WCD's statement that "the overall global level of physical displacement could range from 40 to 80 million people" due to dam construction could well be a conservative figure. Since the global experience is that such resettlement impoverishes the majority of those involved, such a number is an incredible indictment of the socioeconomic impact of what are supposed to be development projects."