The relevance of social capital and community participation for resettlement projects: Insights from Metro Manila

Abstract

Resettlement is a central element of urban development in Metro Manila and in many other fast-growing cities around the world. It is gaining prominence under the banner of planned resettlement in light of the already realized and anticipated climate change effects. Meaning that in recent years, the hundreds of thousands of informal settlers who were officially documented to be living in so-called danger zones in Manila have become targets for resettlement executed in the name of risk-informed planning and climate adaptation. Given that extensive research on forced migration and displacement, on post-disaster relocation or infrastructure-induced resettlement has revealed that there is a substantial likelihood that the relocated people are impoverished, it must be asked and analysed if such resettlement in the name of reducing people’s exposure to hazards is supporting resilience-building or not.

The disruptive nature of resettlement with its potential negative impacts is known by the stakeholders who are involved in the planning of projects in the Philippines. Hence, guidelines for the design and the implementation of resettlement projects meanwhile acknowledge potential risks and emphasise the importance of integrating the perspective and needs of the community into the process, allowing participation and supporting local initiatives such as so-called People’s Plans. While this sounds good, the reality is different and only very few projects are based on bottom-up processes and planned and implemented with sufficient participation.

Accordingly this contribution analyses different resettlement approaches with different levels of participation in their resilience-building potential. Further, it looks at social capital and how it varies and can impact the projects. Therewith the contribution asks and investigates if people-centred projects have a better prospect for resilience-building than conventional top-down projects. It is built on intensive primary data gathered within the project LIRLAP (Linking disaster risk governance and land-use planning: the case of informal settlements in hazard-prone areas in the Philippines) and provides an innovative methodological framework for assessing the resilience-building potential of different resettlement projects by two developed indexes. This quantitative approach is complemented by qualitative field activities, including transect walks through the settlements, meetings with the community representatives and Focus Group Discussions.