Second North East Irrigated Agriculture Project NEIAP II

Progress situation as of January 31st, 2008

1. What NEIAP II is about

The Second North East Irrigated Agriculture Project (NEIAP II) is an innovative development approach of the World Bank and the Government of Sri Lanka to revive the rural economy and livelihood of people in the North East Province and some bordering villages of adjoining districts of Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Moneragala and Puttalam. NEIAP II is the repeater operation of NEIAP I, which initiated activities in January 2005. The project area map is given below.

Project Area Map

The project is aimed at assisting conflict affected communities in all above districts to restore livelihoods, enhance agriculture production and incomes and build capacity for sustainable social and economic re-integration.

This project Development Objective will be achieved through;

(a) Creating, restoring or improving village level social and economic infrastructure and facilities,

(b) Improving productivity, sustainability and competitiveness of agriculture.

(c) Building skills and capacity and decentralizing powers for decision making, control of resources and implementation of programms at the community level and

(d) Implementing targeted livelihood support programmes for the most vulnerable people such as land mine victims, people with war – induced deficient abilities, widows, and women headed households in the area.

In order to achieve the above mentioned objective, the project has received a sum of US $ 64.7 million soft loan from World Bank and with the Government contribution of US $ 13.72 million and the Beneficiary contribution of US $ 2.72 million, it makes a total of US $ 81.14 million which is equivalent to a sum of SL Rs. 8110.14 million

2. Project components.

The project is financing the following activities as its components

Component 1

Village Rehabilitation and Development

Sub Components

1.1 Reviving, forming and strengthening Community Based Organization in 600 focal villages (About 1800 CBOs)

1.2 Community level sub projects for rehabilitation and improvements to essential village level social and economic infrastructure and facilities.

1.3 Livelihood Support Activities (LSA) for vulnerable groups and people.

1.4 Pilot programmes to test and develop innovative village community development and empowerment approaches.

Component 2

Essential rehabilitation and improvements to five major irrigation schemes.

Component 3

FOs / FFs Capacity Building and Empowerment and Agriculture Support Services Strengthening.

Sub Components

3.1 Capacity Building of FOs and FFs and Provincial Agriculture Agencies.

3.2 Technical Assistant in support of training and FO development

3.3 Provision of infrastructure for training, research and seed production and quality monitoring.

3.4 Supply of vehicles, equipment and facilities.

Component 4

Institutional Capacity Building, Project Implementation Support and Project Oversight.

Sub Components

4.1 Capacity Building of Provincial, District / Divisional and Local Government Agencies.

4.2 Project Implementation Support and Oversight.

3. Current status of NEIAP II.

The project commenced activities in January 2005 and has already completed 37 months out of its total implementation period of 73 months (six years). The overall project situation by components is given below.

(A) Component 1 (General)

The project has created a data base on general activities relating to community mobilization and sub project identification under component 1 and the progress of which are stated below.

Progress of Sub components 1.1 – Strengthening of CBOs
Activities	Target	Progress	% Progress	Remarks
Selection of Focal Villages #	75	72	100	3, Focal villages deleted
Appointment of CMs #	43	43	100
Training of CMs #	43	43	85
Screening of focal villages #	75	75	100
Appointment of CSTs #	26	26	100
Initial Awareness programme #	75	75	100
Establish VRDCs #	75	75	100
Setting up of VRCs #	75	75	100
PRA / PNA sessions #	75	75	100
VDPs preparation # (Revised)	75	75	87	Revised in January.2006
VSEP preparation #	75	75	100
Appointment of VFs #	45	45	100
Training of VFs #	45	45	85
Revival / formation of CBOs
FO #	75	75	99
RDS #	75	75	100
WRDS #	75	75	100
CBO capacity assessment
FO #	75	75	100
RDS #	75	75	100
WRDS #	75	75	100
Sub project identification
Irrigation #	70	69	100
Roads Km	253	251	100	VDPs data
Wells #	195	195	100
Multi Purpose Buildings #	73	73	100

PMU has introduced an intensive monitoring programme for all these component one (1) related activities. Accordingly all Deputy Project Directors have commenced reviewing the performance of each focal village through CMs meetings conducted by weekly.

Sub Component 1.1 – Reviving, forming and strengthening village level CBOs.

At least 225 CBOs have been identified on the basis of 3 CBOs (FO, RDS and WRDS) per village. They have been given initial awareness about project and its operational arrangements. CBOs in almost all the villages have expressed their willingness to undertake community contracts for restoration / rehabilitation of village level assets. They participated in the village need identification and planning process and implementation process commenced on October 2005. CBO capacity assessment has also been completed. Basic training needed for CBOs in being provided by the available resource personnel and technical training in specific subjects will be provided periodically.

Sub Component 1.2 - Implementation of sub projects.

Sub project identification process under planning phase of the Village Development Cycle on completion of project stepped in to the implementation phase. Most of the identified village level sub projects include minor irrigation schemes and rural road rehabilitation, construction of drinking water wells and multi purpose buildings in all villages.

The progress of sub project implementation is presented below.

Sub project implementation	Target	Cumulative Progress	% Progress
Irrigation
Estimate sanctioned	59	52	88
Tender Awarded	59	49	83
Work in Progress		23	39
Completed	59	17	29
Not commenced		9