Resettlement and Monitoring
Villagers from the core site were resettled in February, 2002 when 1,485 households with a population of 5,270 people from Donglian and Yanqian moved to new sites at Shangyang and Huangyuchong, near Huiyang. These locations were chosen with input from villagers who were also involved in the design of their new houses. The resettlement of 3,081 people (1222 households) living within a 500-metre wide residential exclusion zone around the perimeter of the Project site were completed by the end of 2003.
Moving to an urban environment and receiving urban registration has given them access to better education and health facilities and employment opportunities.
CSPC commissioned a team of international and PRC resettlement specialists to assist Huizhou City in working out the Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) to ensure that the resettlement met, not only Chinese standards, but also international standards consistent with the development of a world-class petrochemicals complex. The RAP details the laws and regulations relating to resettlement compensation, process and livelihood restoration approaches after the relocation. The team also monitored the livelihoods of the resettled villagers after the relocation to verify that the resettlement was carried out in compliance with World Bank Directive, and the living conditions and income earning capacity of the affected people were restored or even improved.
Since November 2007, seven external monitoring compiled by the team have been published on this website. Both CSPC and the government followed up the issues and proposals raised in the reports. At the same time, we conducted our own internal monitoring and paid visits to the resettled villagers regularly to review their status quo. We also actively worked with the government to restore the livelihoods of the resettled villagers through providing craft training programs, employment opportunities and lending support to the village companies.
'Overall, the external monitoring panel assesses that conditions favorable to sustaining increases in resettler household income have been established,' commented Robert Barclay, an international resettlement specialist, in his Final Resettlement External Monitoring Report of October 2007. He also said that ‘CSPC was able to forge enduring partnerships with the local government and the leadership of the two resettled villages, Donglian and Yanqian, based on good communication and a common understanding of the resettlement standards to be achieved. CSPC, Huizhou Government and the Dayawan Administrative Committee will have established a benchmark for resettlement delivered through a government-private sector partnership in PRC and world-wide.'
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