The shortfalls in predictions of displaced people seemed to be most marked for dams built in the upper reaches of rivers and in low-income countries. Of the 68 dams reporting displacement less than one-half affected indigenous people. The tendency has been towards an 'all or nothing' scenario suggesting that where indigenous people were displaced, they were the majority and more predominantly the sole ethnic group involved. Quantitative data received for health impacts requested in the Survey questionnaire were not available in most cases. There has been a growing emphasis on transparency and participation in decision-making involving large dams, especially in the 1990s.
Sensitivity analysis is more common and has become standard for donor-financed projects.
Over the last two decades, environmental aspects have increasingly been implemented to better inform the decision-making process for project approvals and operation. Technical, economic and financial aspects are still prioritised, having been implemented far more frequent than environmental aspects for the same dams in the 1990s. Planning programmes and monitoring of social impacts however, remain a low priority. For 96 dam projects, economic growth was the overriding project development objective. Food security and poverty alleviation as project objectives show a marked increase between the 1980s and 1990s and was specified for one-half of the projects in the 1990s.