WB assists Northern rehabilitation
The World Bank yesterday approved a US$ 77 million package for Sri
Lanka, designed to support the return of 100,000 Internally Displaced
Persons (IDPs) to their places of origin in the Northern Province and to
restore their livelihoods des-troyed by three decades of civil war.
The Bank will also support rehabilitation of provincial roads in the
Eastern, Northern Southern and Uva Provin- ces through a US$ 105 million
credit for a Provincial Roads Project.
Naoko Ishii |
“The challenges of reconciliation and reconstruction are daunting”,
said World Bank Country Director for Sri Lanka Naoko Ishii. “The
approval of this response package by the World Bank’s Board of Directors
demonstrates that development partners recognize the challenges that the
country is facing and want to help.
We trust the interventions initiated by the World Bank - supported
projects in the North will build a good foundation for rehabilitation
and reconstruction and provide a strong platform for the Government to
welcome other development agencies as they too come forward to assist
Sri Lanka at this juncture”.
The US$ 65 million Emergency Northern Recovery Project (ENREP) will
held the Government of Sri Lanka to assist about 100,000 of the
returnees as they seek to resume their economic and social lives.
It will restore village-level infrastructure and war-damaged rural
access roads, drinking water, irrigation facilities and public office
buildings.
ENREP includes ‘cash for work’ opportunities for returnees to fill
the income gap between the time of return and the resumption of
livelihoods. In addition, the project will provide assistance for
returnees who wish to resume farming and fishing.
In tandem with ENREP, the Bank will provide an additional US$ 12
million to the ongoing community based Reawakening Project to provide
livelihood support to the most vulnerable returning IDPs, including
women-headed households, youth and ex-combatants, as well as disabled
and landless people.
Already active since 2004, this project has benefitted close to
40,000 households or 200,000 individuals - through increased incomes and
improved access to village-level social and economic infrastructure.
This additional financing covering the Northern Province will help
restore farm and non-farm sustainable livelihoods, and support
irrigation rehabilitation for the newly returned IDPs. As part of the
integrated implementation of ENREP and the Reawakening Project,
consultation mechanisms already established under the Reawakening
project will be used to tailor support to the needs of the returning
IDPs.
The Provincial Roads Project includes a $20 million allocation to the
Northern Province, with the rest of the project financing road
improvement and maintenance in the still-recovering the Eastern and Uva
Provinces.
The work in the Northern Province will improve about 100km of
provincial roads and other road infrastructure in selected, prioritized
areas of Jaffna District. This assistance will go towards restoring
connectivity between the severely damaged rural network and the main
highways, as well as access to socio-economic services.
The project will also support rehabilitation of 150km of roads in Uva
Province and 100km in Ampara District of the Eastern Province. The
people in these provinces rely on agriculture as a main source of income
and inadequate connectivity to markets prevents them from getting the
best prices for their products.
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