Session Description
Involuntary resettlement is usually framed in impact assessment practice as an adverse social impact to be minimized and mitigated — a consequence of project design to be managed after the fact. This paper challenges that framing through the Building Socially Inclusive, Economically Vibrant and Climate Resilient Neighborhoods in Salvador (Salvador SBN) Project, a World Bank-financed urban upgrading operation in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
The project finances integrated multi-hazard risk mitigation in the Mocambo River basin, targeting Canabrava and Vila Mar — two informal settlements among the city's most exposed to landslides and flooding. The removal of up to approximately 770 households from certified high-risk zones is not a byproduct of civil works: it is the condition for their physical safety. This inversion — displacement as protection — raises a distinctive question: how should impact assessment assess, communicate, and manage resettlement when the counterfactual is continued exposure to lethal risk?
Drawing on the project's ESMF, Resettlement Framework, and Stakeholder Engagement Plan, the paper examines four dimensions of this challenge: how geological risk certification by CODESAL gives displacement decisions a legally defensible and technically independent basis; how project design addresses the disproportionate vulnerability of female-headed single-parent households, integrating gender equity measures from census through livelihood restoration; how territorial security risks linked to criminal faction control reshape fieldwork and community engagement, requiring tailored protocols alongside standard practice; and how Salvador's prior resettlement experience.
Session Summary
When displacement protects rather than harms, standard impact assessment frameworks fall short. This paper examines the Salvador SBN Project in Brazil, where resettling ~770 households from certified landslide and flood zones is itself the risk-reduction instrument.
Session Chair
Sara Macedo
IBRD - World Bank
Brazil