Exploring synergies between the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and involuntary resettlement guidelines: The case of Mozambique’s natural gas project

This paper explores synergies between the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, comprised of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as its roadmap, and existing involuntary resettlement guidelines. On one hand, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development views displacement as a humanitarian problem but fails to address the potential effects of SDG-induced processes of economic and physical displacement and involuntary resettlement. On the other, involuntary resettlement guidelines pay limited attention to the sustainable development of resettled people as well as to the society in which resettlement becomes embedded. This paper explores possibilities to establish synergies between the SDGs and involuntary resettlement by drawing on the case of Mozambique’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which was showcased in the Government of Mozambique’s 2020 Voluntary National Review (VNR) of SDG progress. The paper will critically analyse how Mozambique as a ‘donor darling’ remains silent about displacement and resettlement processes induced by an LNG project that is used to show its commitment to multiple SDGs. The paper shows that there is a misalignment between how SDGs are used to evaluate a development project and how involuntary resettlement guidelines are applied to the same project. The paper argues that, to truly ‘leave no one behind’, the SDGs and involuntary resettlement guidelines need to be realigned by integrating SDG-induced displacement and resettlement into SDG10 on migration and inequality, into SDG16 on conflicts, and SDG17 on global partnerships.