Counting Costs

Forced evictions and displacement of communities from their homes and habitats destroy lives and livelihoods, particularly of the poor, with support from both the state and private actors. In the context of urbanization and the scramble for economic resources, this phenomenon continues to accelerate across many countries. Despite the development of ample international human rights norms, a lack of effective domestic human rights-based laws and policies on housing and land use make forced evictions and dispossession the norm in many countries. Monitors currently lack adequate quantification methods to document and assess these violations and damages.

HIC-HLRN is developing those needed tools through its “Counting Costs” project, which applies quantification methods in cases of eviction. The project pilots eviction-impact-assessment tools in three countries: Kenya, India and Cameroon. HIC-HLRN has developed the Housing Rights Violation Loss Matrix as a central tool and reference for its work in determining the full consequences that persons and households undergo in the process of forced eviction and displacement. This methodology can be utilized by housing and land rights defenders, legal practitioners, field researchers and/or actual victims everywhere to determine a wide range of losses and costs that typically are associated with forced evictions, but are rarely recognized or documented.

With funding support from Wellspring Advisors, HIC-HLRN’s “Counting Costs” project seeks to:

1. Identify the costs and losses prior to, during and after forced eviction and displacement;
2. Expose the actual and full costs of development projects involving displacement incurred by effected persons and households;
3. Prove that forced evictions and displacements deepen poverty and deprivation at all stages;
4. Deter future evictions and displacements by making perpetrators accountable for the harm they cause;
5. Guide remedies, applying the reparations framework (defined in international law as a right);
6. Contribute to conflict resolution (in small-scale cases) and transitional justice (in grand-scale cases);

Through its quantification project, HIC-HLRN supports local monitoring of housing and land rights violations in a variety of strategically important cases. The Network will share the outcomes of the “Counting Costs” project with Member organizations and other interested parties across regions.