Presenter: Janet Jebichii Sego
Date: Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Time: 12.20 – 13.30
Venue: ACMS Seminar Room: Room 2163, Solomon Mahlangu House (2nd floor), East Campus, Wits University (directions)
Abstract:
While large scale development projects in various sectors such as transport, energy and urban development may result in a number of benefits to the wider public, involuntary and arbitrary displacements that may result from such projects remains to be the most significant adverse impacts of development projects that potentially affect the enjoyment of human rights by the people (in)directly affected by development projects. And noting that large scale development projects usually involve multiple actors ranging from host country’s government entities, financiers, project developers and international investors among others, there is need to analyze the duties of each of the actors towards the project affected persons. Apart from host States which bear primary responsibility for protection of its people against displacement, tracing responsibility for human rights violations against the affected communities arising from such projects in a web of actors is usually complicated task thus often leaving such violations unaddressed. The research examines the role of bilateral Development Finance Institutions in preventing or mitigating impacts of displacements caused or likely to be caused by their financed projects in the Global South. The project uses select development projects in three countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and European Development Financing Institutions as case studies.
About the Researcher:
Janet Jebichii Sego is an FWO PhD Fellow in the Law and Development Research Group at University of Antwerp, Belgium. Her current research falls at the intersection of internal displacements, international human rights, international development, and development finance. Sego is also an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. She holds a Master of Laws in Regional Integration and East African Community Law from the University of Dar es Salaam (under the Tanzanian German Centre for Eastern African Legal Studies (TGCL)) and Bachelor of Laws (LL. B) from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.
