The World Bank - South Asia Region

World Bank to support reconstruction and peace building in Sri Lanka

WASHINGTON November 20, 2002 –As efforts to consolidate peace intensify in Sri Lanka, the World Bank agreed on November 14 to provide US$31 million to improve the lives and economic prospects of people living in conflict-affected areas. The funds were mobilized quickly in response to the immediate need for easing the hardships which exacerbate tension in the North East Province, and are in turn part of a broader World Bank strategy to support Sri Lanka’s national economic reform and development in the context of the peace process.

The new financing will support an Emergency Reconstruction Program which will help restore primary health care; repair urban water schemes; provide returning families with opportunities for income generation and employment; and build capacity to undertake a multi-donor-financed reconstruction program in the coming years. It will assist people living in the North East Province where development assistance has been absent for 20 years. The Program will be administered by the North East Provincial Council.

“We have offered this assistance to help those who are among the most vulnerable of Sri Lanka’s poor, as part of the World Bank’s primary mission of helping to reduce poverty,” said Peter Harrold, World Bank Country Director for Sri Lanka. “In addition, it is extremely important that the benefits of peace—which include better social services, economic opportunity and growth—be demonstrated to the entire population of Sri Lanka as early as possible.”

The priorities of the Emergency Reconstruction Program were developed based on a joint rapid needs assessment carried out by the government together with the World Bank’s International Development Association, the Asia Development Bank, The World Health Organization and the German Technical Cooperation Agency. The program will be anchored in the country’s Framework for Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation, a plan for building sustainable peace in Sri Lanka, which was developed through a consultative process begun in July, 1999.

The US$ 31 million will come from project savings that would have otherwise been canceled. Another US$ 12 million will be provided from ongoing projects in legal and judicial reform and education, which were originally intended to reach the North East, but had been blocked earlier due to the conflict. Another US$ 23 million is being provided from ongoing projects aimed primarily at assisting the North East—i.e., the North East Irrigated Agriculture Project and the Landmine Action Project. This brings the total World Bank commitments to the North East to US$66 million. In addition, a recently approved Renewable Energy for Rural Economic Development project and an HIV/AIDS project (under preparation) incorporate initiatives to support the North East.

The World Bank's overall program of assistance to Sri Lanka provides financing and technical assistance for both economic and human development. It is helping to improve basic social services and reduce the incidence of disease, with a special emphasis on HIV/AIDS. It is supporting rural programs aimed at increasing access to innovative agricultural techniques; enhancing land and natural resource management; and helping to meet essential public needs for education, electricity, water, and sanitation services.

In parallel with direct poverty programs, the World Bank is supporting improvements in the broader investment climate and the rural economy through ongoing policy discussions and financing for upgrading key areas of the economy. In particular it is assisting with public sector reform, encouraging the private sector participation needed for more robust economic growth.

The Road to Reconciliation, 2010

Investment and Education for Development
(January 21, 2011)

Speech by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha at the BizPact Investment Forum, Public Library Jaffna, January 6^th 2010.
Stability and Confidence for Revitalization - entrepreneurship and education amongst the resettled
(January 21, 2011)

The process of resettlement is proceeding apace now, with well over 120,000 persons having gone back to locations in the Northern Province. Of these the more complex returns were to areas previously under the control of the LTTE in sections of Mannar and Vavuniya and in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu.
Civil Military Liaison - The key to social progress
(January 21, 2011)

In the long hard haul that the process of resettlement has entailed, perhaps the most remarkable factor is the role played by the military. After the enormous effort involved in defeating the LTTE, there was no respite for the soldiers. Instead they have continued to work at a level of intensity that is sadly not recognized.
Overcoming constrictions and tyranny - The oppression of the LTTE in Mullaitivu
(January 21, 2011)

One reason why I suspect reconciliation will be easier in Sri Lanka than in many places that have suffered conflict is the level of suffering inflicted by the LTTE on the Tamil people. There was also an extraordinary hierarchical system, which gave great advantages to the privileged whilst the others had to serve them unquestioningly.
Promoting Contact - English programmes for all communities in the East
(January 21, 2011)

There has been so much interest about resettlement and rebuilding in the North that the East has been comparatively neglected. I had not been there for six months myself, which was sad for that was an area I had been in constantly from the eighties onward.
Making Connections - The revival of Trincomalee
(January 21, 2011)

Trincomalee has always struck me as a magical place, and I have often wondered whether we might not all have been much better off had President Jayewardene moved the capital there rather than ten miles down the road from Colombo to a place that had no merit, even in his eyes, except for its name. And, even if that idea might be fanciful, our failure over nearly half a decade to develop decent communications, to improve connections between the different areas of Sri Lanka, has struck me as a mark of monumental foolishness, which certainly contributed to the spread of resentment and then terror.
Individual Innovations and Initiative
(January 21, 2011)

Trincomalee is associated in my mind with two individuals, whose life and work continue to provide guidelines for effort. The first was Denzil Kobbekaduwa, who was in charge of the area when I visited in 1988, to check on the schools furniture project. That was the time of the IPKF, and one could sense some tensions, even though in general officers on both sides behaved with perfect conviviality at army headquarters.
Independence Day Celebrations at the Rehabilitation Centres
(January 21, 2011)

I was in Vavuniya on Independence Day, to join in celebrations at a couple of the Rehabilitation Centres. These had been planned by the officials administering the camps under the authority of the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, but our Confidence Building and Stabilization Measures Project had assisted with the arrangements. Ironically, the main funding we receive, from UNHCR, cannot be used for these youngsters, just as for some strange reason the World Food Programme does not feed them. Fortunately the government is more enlightened and sees these victims of the LTTE’s forced recruitment as deserving of all possible assistance and encouragement.
Returns for the Old and the Recently Displaced
(January 21, 2011)

After the Independence Day celebrations at the Rehabilitation Centres in Vavuniya, I visited a couple of areas that had been resettled. I had been particularly anxious to get to the Rice Bowl in Mannar, since that had been the initial target for rapid resettlement. In the days when the hostile claimed that we intended to keep the displaced permanently in Vavuniya, we were well aware that the President was pressing for rapid cultivation by the returnees.
Promoting Prosperity and Reconciliation in Amparai
(January 21, 2011)

I had not been to Amparai for the whole of 2009, so I was wholly unprepared for the tremendous progress the District had registered since my previous visit in the middle of 2008, as Head of the Peace Secretariat. Then the citizens’ committees we met were still worried about security considerations, about restrictions on movement that restrained economic activity, even about the occasional massacre perpetrated by the tiny groups of Tiger guerillas who had survived the clearing of the East.

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