On the Wrong Side of Development: Lessons Learned from the LHWP
Date:
Thursday, June 1, 2006
The Lesotho Highlands Water Project was expected to offer direct developmental benefits to Lesotho's citizens, and especially its dam-affected people, in the form of jobs, better roads, tourism growth, water supply, environmental protection, and other things.
But instead, the LHWP brought suffering to the communities resettled to make way for the project’s huge dams and roads. Tales of demolished houses, fields destroyed, hopes dashed are testimony to the cruel results of the project, a sad contradiction to the project’s treaty which promised a life “not inferior to one obtaining before the start of the project.”
This book describes where the resettlement process went wrong, and what can be learned from the situation.
