Essential livelihood recovery interventions (LRIs) for urban development-induced rural displacement and resettlement in India: a Delphi technique

Abstract

Livelihood recovery, a well-researched issue while a natural disaster, has often been overlooked in the case of other man-made disasters, such as displacement and resettlement caused by urban development projects. Although government institutions/organizations initiated various interventions to combat the externalities of such projects and make the affected people more resilient, a holistic approach is lacking. This study attempts to identify livelihood recovery interventions (LRIs) based on different mechanisms of livelihood resilience for the people affected by urban development projects. Following a literature review and field visit, an initial list of seventy-three LRIs under fifteen mechanisms was prepared. Then, a panel of experts from India was invited to participate in a Delphi technique to check the interventions’ applicability and determine additional context-specific interventions to attain livelihood resilience in the Indian context. The results show that maximum interventions related to (i) empowering the people in rural areas, especially for their active participation in the implementation of the development project; (ii) additional facilities to reduce outmigration; (iii) long-term strategies by the government to achieve sustainability are the most relevant, as gained the consensus with aggregate preference 90%, in three rounds of Delphi. These results highlight the directions for policy-makers and planners in designing and managing livelihood recovering activities to achieve livelihood resilience.