Gamidiriya among world top 20

Gamini WARUSHAMANA

Gemidiriya has been ranked among the world’s top 20 outstanding and replicable examples of poverty reduction programs in the world according to a recently launched book of the UNDP.

The book “Poverty reduction that works: Experience of Scaling up Development Success” launched by the UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Centre, Colombo (APRCC) carries 20 such poverty reduction initiatives in 15 countries in the Asia, Africa and Latin American regions.

The book was launched at APRCC recently. The projects selected in the book provide practical solutions to policy makers and show possibilities of how governments and civil society can help the poor.

The start and the progress of most of the poverty alleviation projects discussed in the book are similar to Gemidiriya.

The book said that all of them have started as small-scale interventions by NGOs and Donors or as pilot projects by governments. Following their success, they are now being scaled up to national level, sometimes across the countries.

The 20 projects included in this book have been selected considering the following factors; poor people working together through associations to negotiate better services and conditions, improved access to markets and skills for poor producers, a more active role for accountable local government, empowering poor households to take part in decision-making, effective use of new technologies and dynamic partnerships between poor people, government and the private sector.

The book says that Gemidiriya demonstrate how rural communities in Sri Lanka have been able to better manage their own development and improve their livelihoods, when provided with skills, information, decision making powers and financial resources. Following are excerpts from the book about Gemidiriya.

“Supply-driven approach to achieve poverty reduction and rural development have been adopted in Sri Lanka since independence, depending mainly on the public service structure to deliver development to the poor.