COMPUTER BASED PROGRAMS FOR USE IN RESETTLEMENT PLANNING

The World Bank has been promoting a Geographic Information System (GIS) based computerized Acquisition and Resettlement Management System (ARMS) to give Project Managers for Resettlement Action Plans (RAPs) an efficient information management and control system to identify implementation bottlenecks, assess progress, and coordinate the diverse activities of the RAP with the technical requirements of the Project. The computerized planning system known as ARMS takes advantage of modern computer control technologies to plan and manage resettlement activities. The World Bank provides training in ARMS to agencies carrying out resettlement, and ARMS is described in: Deborah L. Fields, 1994. Training Manual for the Computerized: Acquisition and Resettlement Management System (ARMS) for Resettlement and Rehabilitation Operations. Washington, DC: World Bank, June.

ARMS provides the Project Manager with an integrated planning and management framework for all Project activities including social, engineering, and financial concerns. It supports Project Managers in their efforts to design, analyze, and monitor resettlement activities. It can also help produce Resettlement Action Plans (RAPs) that comply with World Bank and other donor funding requirements. And, it greatly facilitates the budgeting and reporting obligations of project management.

Project Managers can use ARMS to:

• Facilitate the execution of the main civil works
• Ensure proper implementation of the resettlement program
• Assist with project preparation and development of master RAPs
• Assist with the development of a framework for Project monitoring
• Control indemnity payments to the affected population
• Support program auditing, particularly those activities associated with land purchase
• Maintain control over covenants and contracts related to the RAP
• Illustrate RAP activities for public consultation and relations

ARMS has been supported by the World Bank's Economic Development Institute and Social Policy Division of the Environmental Department, as well as its operations divisions, to help organizations plan and manage resettlement and produce RAPs that comply with World Bank funding requirements and policy guidelines on resettlement, as well as the requirements of other agencies with parallel policies. Specifically, ARMS is a means to:

• Provide a systems perspective of resettlement and rehabilitation operations and a management structure;
• Provide Project Managers who must plan, schedule, budget, resource manage, and evaluate RAPs of any type (rural and urban) and size;
• Allow Project Managers to model changes in resettlement programming and adjust resource allocations;
• Provide comprehensive data storage and manipulation;
• Provide direct access to GIS for development and analysis of maps that display relevant and current information, including socioeconomic information about the households in the host and recipient areas;
• Produce reports useful for general management planning reviews, the property unit, the finance unit, final reviews, and evaluation; and
• Support participatory (community involvement) planning.

One ARMS-type system developed by for a large irrigation project had components for not only the RAP but also for: (a) catchment area management; (b) operating the reservoir (c) maintenance (d) personnel management; and (e) land acquisition.

For this Project, the GIS developer used Clipper programming language to customize existing 'off the shelf' software packages: Fox-Base for data management; Instaplan for project management, and Arcview for the GIS applications. Various software potentially useful for developing GIS are:

Operating Systems:

• DOS
• Windows
• Windows for Workgroups
• Windows-NT
• Netware and
• Unix

Databases:

• Oracle 6.0 and 7.0
• Microsoft Access
• Borland Paradox
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Client-Server Computing

Xbase Systems:

• CA-Clipper
• Foxpro
• dBase
• etc.

Programming Languages:

• +
• Visual Basic
• IBM PC Assembly Language
• etc.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS):

• ARCINFO
• ARCVIEW and supporting products
• ATLAS-GIS
• IDRISI
• Mapping and Drafting Tools such as AUTOCAD etc.

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