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By Trincomalee correspondent, K. D. Jayasekera The North-East Community Restoration and Development Project is to be launched in the year 2002 with financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank, OPEC and Germany. The Netherlands and Sri Lanka Governments will improve the well-being of people affected by the 18-year-long conflict in the Northern and Eastern provinces of the country through providing houses and other basic services for those who have been displaced by the conflict, improving health and education facilities re-establishing agriculture and fishing activities as a means of providing income to people who are presently dependent on welfare payments and mobilizing communities to become involved in implementing project financed activities. The armed conflict, which commenced in 1983 has killed several thousand people and in addition about 700,000 to 800,000 have been displaced. The conflict has also destroyed or damaged houses, infrastructure and livelihood and has led to redistribution of ethnic population, loss of access to markets and social services and minimal functioning of the civil administration in the project area. The disruption of economic activity is estimated to have decreased the contribution of the Northern and Eastern provinces to the national gross domestic product from 15% in the 1960s to 4% in 1997. The objective of the proposed project is to contribute to the government’s overall relief and rehabilitation program for the North East by improving the living conditions and well-being of communities that have been affected by conflict particularly displaced people. The total cost of the project is estimated at US$ 40m. The Ministry of Provincial Councils and Local Government will be the executing agency and the North East Provincial Council will be the implementing agency. The project will be implemented through existing government structures and procedures at the national provincial, district, division and local levels. The Governor of the Northern and Eastern provinces will coordinate activities between the civil and military authorities. The project will be managed on a day-to-day basis by a Project Management Unit (PMU) to be established in Trincomalee. The PMU will be assisted by a management team financed by the German Government and provided by the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit. The project will benefit a significant proportion of the 700,000-800,000 people who have been forced to relocate because of the conflict and also people who have remained in place but have lost access to basic social and economic infrastructure. Through the project’s income generating activities people who now rely on welfare payments and food rations will have the opportunity to rebuild their lives and to become more independent than has been possible for most of the past two decades. The sectors presently included in the project scope are health, education, water supply and sanitation, agriculture including irrigation and fisheries, shelter, roads to a limited extent and a cross sectors income generation. The scope of the Projects health activities will include major hospital buildings primarily in Ampara, Batticaloa, Mannar and Vavuniya including services and equipment. The scope under water supply and sanitation include medium scale water supply works in towns and villages, small scale water supplies in resettled and relocated communities including communities that have become or will become hosts to such communities (dug and tube wells, small piped schemes and other options). Sanitation works include primarily latrines, water supply and sanitation works in schools. The scope under education will include construction of new buildings in existing schools and rehabilitation of existing schools in relocated and resettled communities as well as in host villages and towns, specifically replacement of existing temporary sheds used as class rooms. Completion of incomplete buildings and reconstruction of other damaged buildings. Construction or rehabilitation of accommodation for teachers at schools where security is acceptable and where it can be shown that teacher attendance suffers through lack of such accommodation. Furniture and educational materials (books etc.) for schools. The Project will develop a program to maximize the involvement of beneficiaries in the design and construction of their relocation areas particularly in the construction of their own housing through the provision at least of labour, building materials will be issued on a grant basis to families to be relocated which they will use in addition to their own labour to construct their houses. Income generating opportunities will be provided for communities possibly through livestock raising, market gardening etc. in cooperation with non governmental organisations (NGOs) active in the Project area. The development of inland fisheries will be mainly in the Vavuniya district where there is considerable scope for inland aquaculture with the assistance of the National Aquaculture Development Authority (for technical support) and of suitably qualified NGOs (for social mobilisation support). The development of coastal fisheries, which depends on the security situation, includes potential sub projects such as the construction of small fishing anchorages where there is demand, provision of ice plants (possibly as private sector investment) and houses and facilities for displaced fishing communities in Ampara, Batticaloa and Mannar district. The project will conclude in 2007.
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