Myanmar’s Planned Resettlement and Social Impact: An Empirical Case Study

oleh: Aung Tun Lin, Kaiwen Yao

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2023-03-01

Deskripsi

This paper explores the planned resettlement process and the social impact induced by the Tha Htay Hydropower Project in Myanmar. Through the empirical case study, the status of direct impact on the resettled people, changes in their livelihood, policy orientation towards practical limitations, practical consequences of resettlement, and inadequate preparation for resettlement implementation were studied as verifiable evidence. In this paper, the survey data were compiled from the responses of resettled people from three resettled villages: Maewa, Payit and Yegauk, which were interpreted as the real condition of the project-affected people because a higher degree of their dissatisfaction negatively affected the project, whereas a higher degree of satisfaction led to positive effects. In this paper, a quantitative method was used to analyze the planned resettlement and its social impact. As a survey descriptive design, a simple random sampling method was utilized to collect samples from the target population with a contribution of structured questionnaires. The collected data were presented by mean and standard deviation to decide the real situation of the resettlement project. The study found that details of social impact were considered to carry out when the construction of the hydropower project began. Then, the policy constraint in the resettlement process was verified, which led to the insufficient preparation and implementation of the resettlement. To meet the future development requirements of the planned resettlement process with fewer social impacts on hydropower development projects, practical contributions and policy recommendations are made for the compensation of farmland, where the people’s livelihoods are land-based, and additional livelihood packages.