Displacement Tracker: Communities Uprooted by the Corridor

Why We Track This

Infrastructure corridors displace people. This is not an externality. It is a design feature. Railways require rights-of-way. Ports require hinterland. Mines require concession areas. When those rights-of-way, hinterlands, and concession areas are occupied by human beings, those human beings are moved. The question is never whether displacement will occur. The question is whether it will occur lawfully, humanely, and with adequate compensation.

The Lobito Corridor is no exception. Stretching from the Atlantic port of Lobito through Angola's interior, across the southeastern DRC's copper-cobalt belt, and into Zambia's Copperbelt, the corridor cuts through some of the most densely populated mining regions in Africa. The Benguela Railway rehabilitation requires clearing communities that settled along dormant track during decades of civil war. The DRC mining zone expansion displaces artisanal mining communities and peri-urban settlements. The proposed Zambia greenfield extension will carve a new right-of-way through agricultural land and villages that have never before hosted industrial infrastructure.

International standards are clear. The IFC Performance Standard 5 on Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement requires that displacement be avoided where possible, minimised where unavoidable, and compensated at full replacement cost where it occurs. It mandates Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for indigenous peoples and meaningful consultation for all affected communities. It requires Resettlement Action Plans developed with community participation, livelihood restoration programmes that leave displaced families no worse off than before, and independent monitoring to verify compliance.

The World Bank Environmental and Social Framework, applicable to IDA-funded components of the corridor, imposes parallel requirements. The Equator Principles, adopted by commercial banks financing corridor-adjacent projects, incorporate IFC Performance Standards by reference. The EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, now in force, creates legal liability for European companies whose supply chains involve inadequate displacement practices. On paper, the safeguard architecture is robust.

On the ground, it is failing.

This tracker exists because the gap between standards and practice can only be closed through systematic, independent documentation. Our methodology combines field reports from community-based monitors in Angola, DRC, and Zambia; civil society data from partner organisations including Action Contre l'Impunité, Centre Carter, and the Zambia Council for Social Development; satellite imagery analysis tracking settlement patterns and land-use change; whistleblower submissions through our secure reporting channel; and cross-referencing with corporate disclosures, DFI project documents, and environmental and social impact assessments. Every data point is triangulated. Every claim is sourced. Where data is uncertain, we say so.

Displacement by Segment

The corridor's displacement footprint varies dramatically by segment. The DRC mining zone accounts for the largest share of displacement by household count, driven by the expansion of industrial mining concessions into settled areas. Angola's railway corridor involves the most geographically dispersed displacement, stretching across 1,300 kilometres of rehabilitated track. Zambia's extension zone, still in planning stages, represents future displacement risk that can still be mitigated through responsible route selection.

Angola Railway Corridor

The Angola segment presents a distinctive displacement pattern. During the country's 27-year civil war (1975–2002), the Benguela Railway ceased operations. Communities settled along and across the dormant track alignment, building homes, markets, and farms on what was technically railway land. When railway rehabilitation began under the Lobito Atlantic Railway concession, these communities faced displacement from land they had occupied for decades. The legal status is contested: Angola's land law distinguishes between formal title and customary occupation, and many affected families hold neither. They hold only the fact of decades of uncontested habitation.

The Luena–Luau section is the most concerning segment in Angola. Over 2,100 households along the eastern stretch of the railway have received minimal engagement from project authorities. Many communities in this section are in remote rural areas with limited access to information about their rights or the project timeline. Civil society presence is thin. Our field monitors report that several communities learned of the railway rehabilitation from construction crews arriving to survey land, not from prior consultation processes. This is the opposite of Free, Prior and Informed Consent. It is displacement by fait accompli.

DRC Mining Zone

The DRC mining zone represents the most acute displacement crisis along the corridor. The concentration of industrial mining concessions around Kolwezi, Likasi, and Fungurume has produced a cumulative displacement burden that no single company acknowledges as its responsibility but that affected communities experience as a continuous, intensifying pressure on their land, livelihoods, and social fabric.

The most heavily affected area is Kolwezi's Bel-Air neighbourhood, where over 3,200 households have been displaced or face imminent displacement from mining expansion. This case is examined in detail below. But Bel-Air is not an anomaly. It is the most visible manifestation of a pattern that repeats across the DRC mining belt: concession boundaries expand, communities are squeezed, compensation is contested, and grievance mechanisms prove inadequate to the scale of the problem.

The Kolwezi–Dilolo rail corridor, which will carry minerals from the DRC mining zone to Angola and onward to Lobito port, has not yet engaged the 1,500+ households along its route. These communities, many of which depend on artisanal mining and subsistence agriculture, have not been consulted about the rail rehabilitation, have not been informed of their rights under IFC PS5 or the DRC Mining Code 2018, and have no access to grievance mechanisms. The window for meaningful FPIC is closing. Once construction begins, consultation becomes retroactive justification.

Zambia Extension Zone

Zambia presents the corridor's best opportunity to get displacement right from the start. The proposed greenfield rail extension from the DRC border to Zambia's existing rail network has not yet finalised its route alignment. This means that displacement minimisation can still be incorporated into route selection. It also means that FPIC processes can be conducted before, rather than after, communities face the reality of construction crews on their land.

However, the Solwezi growth corridor around First Quantum Minerals' operations demonstrates that Zambia is not immune to displacement failures. Approximately 390 households have been resettled in connection with FQM's mining expansion, with mixed outcomes. Some families report adequate compensation and improved housing. Others report loss of agricultural land without equivalent replacement, separation from extended family networks, and distance from markets that previously sustained their livelihoods. The variance in outcomes, even within a single company's resettlement programme, illustrates the importance of independent household-level monitoring rather than reliance on aggregate company reporting.

The Bel-Air Case Study

If the Lobito Corridor has a ground zero for displacement, it is Bel-Air.

The Bel-Air neighbourhood sits on the western edge of Kolwezi, the DRC's copper-cobalt capital. It is home to an estimated 3,200+ households — roughly 18,000 to 22,000 people. It is also sitting on top of some of the richest copper-cobalt deposits on Earth. That collision between human habitation and mineral wealth has produced the corridor's most visible, most contested, and most documented displacement crisis.

Multiple forces are converging on Bel-Air. Glencore's Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) holds concession rights that overlap with parts of the neighbourhood. CMOC's Tenke Fungurume Mining has expansion plans that increase pressure on the broader Kolwezi periphery. Artisanal miners, some operating legally under DRC cooperative frameworks and many operating informally, dig in and around the neighbourhood. The Congolese state, which holds equity in both KCC and TFM through Gécamines, has interests that align more closely with mining revenue than with community protection.

The compensation disputes in Bel-Air illustrate a systemic failure. International standards require replacement cost: the amount needed to replace a lost asset with an asset of equivalent value. In Bel-Air, compensation has been calculated using government-set rates that bear no relationship to actual construction costs, market land values, or the economic value of lost livelihoods. Families who built homes over decades receive payments that would not cover a single room of equivalent construction. Market traders who lose customer relationships built over years receive nothing for lost goodwill. Artisanal miners who lose access to mining sites receive no livelihood transition support.

The cultural dimension of Bel-Air's displacement is rarely acknowledged in corporate reporting. Communities have ancestral burial sites within the displacement zone. Churches, mosques, and community gathering spaces anchor social networks that cannot be replicated by cash payment. The social infrastructure of a neighbourhood — the relationships, the mutual aid networks, the shared history — has no line item in a compensation spreadsheet.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the UK-based organisation RAID have all documented displacement conditions in Bel-Air. Their findings consistently identify the same failures: inadequate compensation, absence of FPIC, failure to provide livelihood restoration, and lack of access to effective grievance mechanisms. These are not isolated findings. They are a pattern.

Company Scoreboard

The following assessment rates major corridor-linked companies on their displacement and resettlement performance. Ratings are based on publicly available information, civil society documentation, field reports from our community monitors, and analysis of corporate disclosures. Companies that refuse to engage with independent monitors receive lower ratings by default. Transparency is not optional.

The Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR) deserves particular scrutiny. As the concessionaire responsible for rehabilitating the Benguela Railway, LAR controls the displacement process for over 5,100 households along the Angolan rail corridor. LAR has filed resettlement action plans for only three of the five major displacement segments. The Luena–Luau section, which accounts for over 2,100 affected households, has no resettlement plan and no FPIC process. LAR's majority owners — the Vecturis consortium including Trafigura — have committed to IFC Performance Standards as a condition of DFC financing. Their performance to date does not reflect that commitment.

Glencore and CMOC, the two largest mining operators in the Kolwezi area, both receive D ratings. Both companies have filed partial resettlement plans. Neither has completed FPIC processes. Both have grievance mechanisms that communities describe as inaccessible, slow, and biased toward company interests. Neither has appointed an independent monitor to verify displacement outcomes. These are companies with annual revenues in the tens of billions. The cost of adequate compensation and independent monitoring is negligible relative to the value of the minerals they extract. The failure is not financial. It is institutional.

Legal Framework

The legal obligations governing displacement along the Lobito Corridor are layered, overlapping, and collectively unambiguous. Companies and DFIs cannot claim ignorance of what is required. The question is enforcement.

International Standards

IFC Performance Standard 5 is the foundational international standard for involuntary resettlement in the private sector. PS5 requires avoidance of displacement where feasible; minimisation where unavoidable; full replacement cost compensation; livelihood restoration to at minimum pre-displacement levels; preference for land-based resettlement for agrarian communities; development of Resettlement Action Plans through meaningful consultation; and monitoring of resettlement outcomes. For projects involving indigenous peoples, IFC Performance Standard 7 requires FPIC. Both standards apply to all corridor projects receiving IFC financing or financing from Equator Principles banks.

World Bank Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) applies to IDA-funded corridor components, including the USTDA-funded ESIA and AfDB co-financed segments. ESS5 on Land Acquisition mirrors IFC PS5 requirements and adds provisions for government-led displacement associated with Bank-financed projects. The ESF's grievance redress mechanism provides an additional accountability channel.

Equator Principles apply IFC Performance Standards to project finance from signatory banks. Any commercial bank financing corridor-adjacent projects — including mineral offtake facilities and logistics infrastructure — must verify compliance with displacement standards as a condition of lending.

National Legislation

DRC Mining Code 2018 establishes community rights in relation to mining activities. Article 281 requires mining companies to compensate communities for damage caused by mining operations, including displacement. The Mining Code requires community development plans and establishes a community development fund funded by 0.3% of mining revenue. The 2018 revision strengthened community consultation requirements, though enforcement remains weak. The DRC's Land Law (Loi Foncière) recognises customary land tenure but creates ambiguity about compensation obligations for unregistered customary holdings.

Angola Land Law (Lei de Terras, Law 9/04) recognises both formal title and customary land rights. However, the law's implementation provisions favour state appropriation for development projects, and compensation mechanisms are administratively determined rather than market-based. Communities displaced for infrastructure projects face a legal framework that prioritises national development over individual land rights. The railway concession agreement between Angola and LAR contains displacement provisions, but these provisions are not publicly available, and affected communities have not been informed of their content.

Zambia Mines and Minerals Development Act requires environmental impact assessment and community consultation for mining projects. The Environmental Management Act 2011 provides procedural protections for affected communities, including the right to participate in environmental assessment processes. Zambia's framework is procedurally stronger than Angola's or the DRC's, but political pressure to attract investment can override procedural requirements in practice.

European Regulatory Overlay

EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) creates a transformative legal overlay. European companies in the corridor supply chain — including automotive manufacturers, battery producers, and commodity traders — face legal liability for adverse human rights impacts, including displacement, in their value chains. The CSDDD requires companies to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for displacement impacts. Non-compliance exposes companies to civil liability in European courts. For the first time, displacement failures in Kolwezi can create legal consequences in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin.

The Equator Principles, IFC Performance Standards, World Bank ESF, national mining codes, land laws, and European due diligence legislation collectively create a legal framework that leaves no ambiguity about what is required. The problem is not the law. The problem is the distance between Kolwezi and the courtrooms where the law is enforced.

What Adequate Compensation Looks Like

The phrase "adequate compensation" appears in every resettlement standard and every corporate sustainability report. It has become so routine that it has been emptied of meaning. So let us be specific about what international standards actually require.

Replacement Cost, Not Market Value

IFC PS5 defines compensation at "full replacement cost" — the market value of assets plus transaction costs, without deductions for depreciation or salvage value. For land, this means the cost of acquiring land of equivalent productive potential in the same area. For structures, this means the cost of constructing a building of equivalent quality using current material and labour costs. In practice, compensation in corridor displacement events routinely falls below replacement cost. Government-set rates in the DRC and Angola bear no relationship to actual replacement costs. A family whose house cost $8,000 to build over fifteen years may receive $1,200 in compensation. That is not replacement cost. That is expropriation.

Livelihood Restoration, Not Just Cash

Cash compensation alone is insufficient under international standards. PS5 requires livelihood restoration — programmes that ensure displaced families can re-establish income-generating activities at or above pre-displacement levels. For farming families, this means access to agricultural land of equivalent quality. For traders, this means access to markets. For artisanal miners, this means either continued access to mining sites or economically viable alternative livelihoods. Cash payments are consumed. Livelihood restoration sustains. The distinction is the difference between a one-time payment and a functioning life.

Vulnerable Groups

International standards require differentiated attention to vulnerable groups within displaced populations. Women-headed households, which are common in DRC mining communities where male mortality and abandonment rates are high, face particular disadvantages in compensation processes. Elderly community members who cannot rebuild homes or re-establish farms require ongoing support, not one-time payments. Persons with disabilities face physical barriers to resettlement that standard programmes do not address. Children's education is disrupted by displacement, with school enrolment drops of 30–50% documented in post-displacement communities across the DRC mining zone.

Cultural and Spiritual Sites

Ancestral burial sites, sacred groves, and community ceremonial spaces cannot be compensated with cash. International standards require that cultural heritage impacts be assessed, that communities be consulted about mitigation measures, and that where cultural sites must be disturbed, culturally appropriate measures are taken. In practice, cultural heritage assessment is the first item cut from project budgets and the last item added to resettlement plans. Communities in Bel-Air have reported ancestral burial sites being excavated by mining equipment without prior notification, consultation, or ceremony.

Common Failures

Recommendations

The following recommendations are directed at the four categories of actors with the power to change displacement outcomes along the corridor. They are specific, actionable, and drawn directly from the evidence documented in this tracker.

To Development Finance Institutions

Condition disbursement on verified FPIC compliance. The DFC, EIB, AfDB, and World Bank/IFC should withhold disbursement tranches until independent verification confirms that FPIC processes have been completed for all affected communities in each project phase. Current practice allows disbursement to proceed on the basis of corporate self-reporting. Self-reporting is not verification. DFIs that disburse without independent verification are complicit in FPIC failures.

Require independent resettlement monitoring. Every corridor project involving displacement should have an independent monitor appointed before displacement begins, funded by the project but reporting to the DFI, not the company. Monitoring should continue for a minimum of three years post-displacement, with published annual reports accessible to affected communities.

Establish a corridor-wide displacement ombudsman. The multiplicity of companies, DFIs, and national jurisdictions along the corridor creates accountability gaps. A dedicated corridor displacement ombudsman, with authority to investigate complaints from any segment and any jurisdiction, would close the gap between community grievance and institutional response.

To Mining Companies

Adopt the ICMM Position Statement on Indigenous Peoples and Mining. The International Council on Mining and Metals' position statement provides a framework for FPIC that, if genuinely implemented, would address the consent deficit documented in this tracker. Companies that are ICMM members — including Glencore and Barrick — have already committed to this standard. Their corridor operations should reflect that commitment.

Publish compensation methodologies. No company operating along the corridor currently publishes its compensation methodology. Affected communities receive payment amounts without understanding how those amounts were calculated. Transparency in methodology enables communities and their advisors to challenge inadequate valuations. Opacity enables undercompensation.

Fund independent legal advice for affected communities. Communities negotiating compensation with multinational mining companies face a profound asymmetry of resources and expertise. Companies should fund independent legal advice for affected communities as a standard component of resettlement programmes. This is not charity. It is a condition of legitimate consent.

To Governments

Enforce existing land laws. The DRC Mining Code 2018, Angola's Lei de Terras, and Zambia's Environmental Management Act all contain provisions that, if enforced, would improve displacement outcomes. The problem is not the absence of law. It is the absence of enforcement. Governments that grant mining concessions and railway rights-of-way have a sovereign obligation to ensure that the human cost of those concessions is managed lawfully.

Publish compensation rates that reflect replacement costs. Government-set compensation rates in the DRC and Angola are below actual replacement costs by factors of five to ten. Updating these rates to reflect actual construction costs, land values, and livelihood values is a precondition for adequate compensation.

Protect community land defenders. Individuals and community leaders who advocate for fair compensation or oppose displacement face intimidation, arrest, and violence across the corridor zone. Governments must ensure that land defenders can exercise their rights without reprisal.

To Civil Society

Systematise documentation. The displacement data landscape along the corridor is fragmented. Multiple organisations document displacement in different locations using different methodologies. Standardised documentation protocols — covering baseline conditions, consultation quality, compensation adequacy, and livelihood outcomes — would enable cross-corridor comparison and strengthen the evidence base for advocacy.

Share data. Displacement data held by individual organisations has limited impact. Shared data, aggregated across the corridor and made publicly available, creates a collective evidence base that no company or government can dismiss as anecdotal. This tracker is one contribution to that collective evidence base. We invite partner organisations to contribute their data.

Engage the EU CSDDD mechanisms. The CSDDD creates new legal pathways for holding European companies accountable for displacement failures in their supply chains. Civil society organisations should systematically document displacement impacts, identify European companies in the supply chain, and prepare the evidence base for potential legal action under the directive. The law is new. The precedents are being set now.

How to Report

This tracker depends on information from the ground. If you are a member of an affected community, a civil society worker, a company employee, a government official, or anyone with information about displacement along the Lobito Corridor, you can contribute to this documentation.

Every report is reviewed. Every verified report is included in this tracker. We do not publish individual identities without explicit consent. We do not share raw reports with companies or governments without the reporter's permission. Our obligation is to the people who provide information, not to the institutions they report on.

Related Database Pages

• Bel-Air, Kolwezi
• Kolwezi
• Benguela Railway
• IFC Performance Standards
• Displacement Law: International Standards vs. African Reality
• Displaced: Voices from Bel-Air

This tracker reflects Lobito Corridor's independent assessment based on field reports, civil society data, satellite imagery, whistleblower submissions, and public disclosures. Data is triangulated but may contain gaps, particularly in areas with limited civil society access. Household counts are estimates based on the best available data and are updated as new information is verified. Companies and governments that wish to provide corrections or additional data are invited to contact displacement@lobitocorridor.com. All corrections are published transparently. This tracker does not constitute legal advice. Affected communities should seek independent legal counsel for specific grievance processes.