CEPA Annual Symposium on Poverty Research
Supported by Frederich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and World Bank


CEPA organises a National Symposium on Poverty Research annually, focusing on topical issues that reflects new insights generated by research in CEPA and in the research community. This is CEPA’s most significant public event that brings together a diverse audience of scholars, practitioners, policy makers and students from different disciplines to discuss empirical findings of poverty related research.
The 9th CEPA Symposium on Poverty Research was held in partnership with FES as well as the World Bank Post Conflict Fund and was on the theme Forced to Move: Involuntary Displacement and Resettlement: Policy and Practice
Within this complex environment, MWRAF also addresses a conflict that is not always immediately apparent. The intra-religious disagreements among different groups within the Muslim community is a contentious area and there was also some resistance because new ideas about intra-religious understanding were being brought out by a group that largely comprised women. The changes that took place as a result of the inter-religious peace building activities were easier to identify but here too there were many vested interests that did not wish to see their power base eroded.
The Symposium comprised three sessions on themes that are common to all types of resettlement regardless of whether the displacement occurred due to conflict, development or natural disasters. One session looked at restoring livelihoods, another at understanding how vulnerabilities were addressed in the process of dealing with displacement, and the third on the implementation of resettlement, emphasising the importance of ensuring equity and participation. In the final session, a video documentary entitled “evicted”, developed by PANOS South Asia, brought in the stories and views of affected people from all three types of displacement/resettlement. This was a precursor to the wrap-up which revisited the objectives and presented key analysis points and insights into those issues which need to be considered to ensure better policy formulation in resettlement processes in the future.

Independent External Monitoring of Resettlement from the Southern Transport Development Project
Client: Asian Development Bank (ADB)
Duration: March 2006 to December 2008
A two year engagement on this project drew to an end in December 2008; but the ADB has requested that the monitoring continues for at least another two years. A new concept note and plan has been drawn up for what will effectively be an extension of the existing technical assistance contract.
The assignment has been a tremendous learning experience for CEPA, and we hope for the Road Development Authority (RDA) and ADB as well. For CEPA, there were several firsts that the assignment attempted: a 400 household sample was the largest CEPA had undertaken at that point, and was a stimulus to developing CEPA’s capacity to carry out quantitative research. The CRISE work that followed attempts an even bigger sample. Combining the quantitative and qualitative in a single tool so as to minimise respondent fatigue was another first, and one that other mixed methodology practitioners are yet to adopt as a rule. The programme also sought to use the evidence gathered to influence policy and practice at different levels: at the level of implementation of the resettlement activity of the Southern Transport Development Project; at the level of implementation of the National Involuntary Resettlement Policy and at the level of the formulation of ADB’s safeguard policies. A separate ODI project conducted parallel to this for 18 months took an ‘outsider’ view of how the study team was carrying out these ‘influencing’ activities and provided important insights that helped structure and fine-tune the influencing work.
Much of the learning from the field work has already been documented in last year’s annual report, especially by those who worked on date collection. In addition, there were important lessons about relationship building and influencing that are worth highlighting. Faced initially with hostility from every side, from the affected persons and their representatives and the executing agency, CEPA was able to gain the confidence of all stakeholders by the end of 2008. There hasn’t necessarily always been agreement, since each stakeholder group has its own interests and seeks to interpret objective, triangulated evidence from their own particular perspective. However, the process of continuous dialogue, transparency of process and findings, the ability to develop (and stick to) a strong research framework that included a representative sample and high levels of triangulation, enabled CEPA to provide monitoring evidence that was generalisable, and reflected the situation of those who were affected by the construction of the Colombo-Matara Highway.
It would appear that, individual stories notwithstanding, in general compensation was adequate and the resettlement process did help most affected people to get back a living standard that they enjoyed before their displacement. However, there continues to be problems in terms of the restoration of livelihoods, the replacement of common property, and ongoing impacts of construction.
The resettlement process was carried out at a tremendous cost to the Government of Sri Lanka, and there are many lessons that can be drawn from the experience that will influence how resettlement is carried out in the future. The cost of implementing a comprehensive resettlement scheme of this nature may also constrain the replicability of some of the more positive elements of the process. The final stages of this project looked to share this knowledge with a wider audience, through a National Stakeholder Workshop, and CEPA’s Annual Symposium on Poverty Research.

Making Peace Keeping Peace
Supported by The European Union (EU)
Duration: October 2006 to April 2009

By the end of 2008, CEPA concluded the study titled ‘ Making Peace Keeping Peace’ in the District of Puttalam. The study developed an understanding of how the different ethnic communities in Puttalam manage conflict, what institutions assist communities to do so, and what lessons other communities can learn from these experiences. The area under study had many factors that could lead to conflict but the communities have managed to maintain a relative ‘peace’ using local knowledge and local conflict management mechanisms. The Making Peace, Keeping Peace study is a consequence of CEPA’s earlier work on post-conflict justice. This work showed that conflict affected communities do not think of justice as requiring a formal legal process but consider their issues to be a series of problems that can be addressed through more community based institutions. It was this finding that led CEPA’s Poverty and Conflict team to explore community based mechanisms further in this study. It identified different local conflict resolution mechanisms that have evolved out of the conflict environment in Puttalam. One of the key findings is that strengthening existing mechanisms, rather than creating new institutions or introducing new techniques, has worked out well in this case. As a result of this study CEPA has built strong relationships with grassroots level institutions working in Puttalam district that have been mutually beneficial. The knowledge and experiences acquired in Puttalam can perhaps be shared and applied in the East, particularly in Ampara and Trincomalee, which also have a multi-ethnic composition.

Monitoring the development of Sri Lanka’s National Involuntary Resettlement Policy (NIRP)
Client: Overseas Development Institute
Duration: January 2007 to December 2008

This assignment, led by members of the Poverty Assessment and Knowledge Management (PAM) team, monitored CEPA’s influence on the NIRP through the activities being carried out under the monitoring of the Southern Transport Development Project. It helped the Poverty Impact Monitoring (PIM) team to organise its policy influence activity and pull in additional knowledge, as was done via the roundtable on policy influence held in September and facilitated the development of good practice notes.

A Review of the Southern Transport Development Project (STDP) Grievance Redress Mechanisms
Client: ADB’s Office of the Special Project Facilitator (OSPF)
Duration: September 2008 to March 2009

Building on the knowledge base from the two-year long STDP monitoring experience, this Review required CEPA to provide an assessment of the grievance redress mechanism used in the Southern Transport Development Project (STDP). This study placed the STDP mechanism within existing national systems. It looked at how sucessfully the STDP grievance mechanisms complemented the existing systems as well as addressing the specific needs of this project. It also looked to draw lessons and recommendations to develop a guide for grievance redress mechanisms which can be used for infrastructure projects involving resettlement in the future.