Yangon Informal Settlements – Resettlement Programme (Yisrp)

After the opening up of Myanmar in 2010, the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (GoM) adopted democratic reforms and market oriented economic reforms. The National Reform Strategy established a policy of people-centered development and embraces bottom-up approaches. Despite this, there is a history of government orchestrated forced resettlement in Myanmar and in Yangon in particular to make way for urban development. Development – caused forced displacement and resettlement (DFDR) is increasing – uprooting and impoverishing people and undermining basic human rights.  Over the last 8 years, investments in real property developments – mostly in high-end housing/apartment towers, shopping malls, hotels, and office complexes are transforming Yangon. During the same period, there has also been a rapid growth of informal settlements largely due to the lack of policy and regulatory frameworks and mechanisms that enable the market to respond to the housing needs of poor and low – income households.  In Yangon, informal settlements have developed in all parts of the city. Most of the growth however is spatially concentrated in and around the ‘resettlement areas’ and along the western and eastern bank of the Hlaing/Pan Hlaing Rivers and the Nga Moe Yeik Creek. Yangon Regional Government (YRG), under the leadership of the Chief Minister has prioritized the need to find a durable solution for households living in informal settlements – particularly in the ‘resettlement areas’ in Yangon’s northwest and has plans to evict for forcibly resettle residents to a new site that is part of a larger urban expansion project. In line with this, the YRG has committed to investing in infrastructure to support urban development including areas for mixed-use development that will be enable access to land and housing for lowerincome households. YRG lacks capacity, however, to ensure resettlement risks are mitigated and needs technical support to determine the viability of the government proposed project. Technical support is required to ensure relocation of households to resettlement sites is voluntary and not forced and is done in a way that mitigates resettlement risks and ensures social, environmental and economic safeguards are in place in accordance with the international standards following international principles and practices.   YRG requires support in the form of technical assistance (as articulated during the meeting with the cooperation partners group held in August 2017) to guide the process of facilitated relocation and the development of the resettlement areas. The YRG requested assistance from development partners to devise a systematic principle-based community-driven resettlement programme that embraces ‘resettlement with development’. UN-Habitat has had numerous discussions wherein basic principles were defined. These discussions have been useful but sustained engagement is required in the form of technical support and oversight.   The programme will be delivered in two distinct phases – the inception phase (proposed project) that focuses on information/data gathering, planning, costing, developing policy and tools on mitigating risks and increasing social protection followed by a resettlement phase if all of the concerns raised in the inception phase are adequately addressed.