Involuntary Displacement and Resettlement — Policy and ... - CEPA

damage for fisher households were significantly high (59% of fisher houseswere fully damaged and 9.8% were partially damaged). Moreover, 44.8%of affected fishery households had been living within 100m of the sea at thetime of the tsunami. This means that fisher households are vulnerable toany future natural disasters which cause a rise in sea level. Resettlement ina different location has been the best suggested option for most of the fisherhouseholds who lived close to the sea. This has been a challenge as mostof the affected fishers are from the marginal section of the coastalcommunity: those who did not have savings, other assets or insurance tocope with the post tsunami situation.2 ObjectivesThis paper attempts to examine the impact of post–tsunami policies relatedland ownership, housing and other factors in resettlement decisions made byfisher households and the government. The paper examines current issuesfacing them and the impact of resettlement on their wellbeing in terms ofhousing conditions, livelihood restoration, access to infrastructure facilitiesand services, and access to social networks. The paper suggests some policyoptions to minimise such issues.3 MethodologySince the study attempts to evaluate the impact of resettlement, it neededto compare socio economic conditions before the tsunami with the situationafter resettlement. The study used the following primary and secondarydata for the analysis.3.1 Baseline information (pre-tsunami data)The Tsunami Census of the Department of Census and Statistics was used asthe baseline data. This was conducted just after the disaster occurred andcovered pre-tsunami socio economic status of the affected households aswell.3.2 Follow-up SurveyA follow-up survey was conducted in July 2008 for a sample of fisherhouseholds (390), selected from the baseline survey. This was done in orderto understand the current socio economic conditions of the affected fisherhouseholds. The sampling plan and sample selection details are given below.85