Gemidiriya Phase I achieves targets - ICR report

by Gamini WARUSHAMANA

The Phase I of the Gemidiriya livelihood improvement and rural development project has achieved its targets, said the Implementation Completion Report (ICR) released last week.

The report is based on a study conducted by the Sri Lanka Business Development Centre on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka. The objective of the report is to assess the project has achieved its Phase I objectives and to measure the impacts.

The Gemidiriya Project now under the purview of the Ministry of Economic Development has combined with the Gamaneguma and Samurdhi programs.

The project is directed at livelihood improvement and expected to increase net incomes of households at least by 30 percent and 60 percent of beneficiary households reaching the target.

Special attention has been given to unemployed youth from poor households on skills development and 60 percent from the program are expected to be employed at the end of Phase I. The overall impact of livelihood improvement is in the reduction of poverty levels of beneficiary households.

The proportion of the population that were below US$ 1 per day income has dropped in many villages since the project was implemented. Both income and expenditure approaches were used in the analysis but both approaches indicate a similar situation. Poverty levels remain high and this could be due to underestimation of income/expenditure. The majority of households have increased their income due to project activities, the report said.

Women have particularly improved self confidence and self worth with improved participation in decision making at household level and Village Organisations (VOs).

According to the report, participatory infrastructure development is another area success. The higher level of community contributions (cash and labour) have been received by the VOs and the levels of contributions are higher than the project target. Infrastructure development has taken place with higher quality and cost efficiencies when compared to similar village level infrastructure development.

Inclusion: Participation of the poorest and the poor

The inclusion of the majority, particularly the poor and the poorest, women and youth in project activities as well as decision making positions of various sub committees has been achieved to the expected level.

The selection of target groups were with the participation of the village community with a higher proportion of the poorest of the poor. Poor and poor groups has been included in VOs and also benefitted from project activities.

As at 31st March 2010 a total of Rs. 5,024.7 million has been contributed to the project with the International Development Agency providing Rs. 4,464.2 million and the Government of Sri Lanka contributing Rs. 560.5 million. The cumulative community contributions recorded up to 31st March 2010 is Rs. 407 million.

Rs. 1,900.2 million had been used for the Livelihood Support Fund (81.2 percent of target) while the Capacity Building Fund had used up 475.4 million (79.8 percent of target). The infrastructure Development Fund had utilised 1,398 million, which is an achievement of only 59.4 percent of the target.

The sub-projects under the Livelihood Support Fund have all performed well; One Time Grant providing for the poorest of the poor in the village to start income generating activities accounting for 73 percent of the target, Skilled Development Loans 65 percent, Rupee a Day savings 101 percent, and VSCO loans 83 percent. The performance of Innovation Seed Fund is below expectation where an estimated Rs. 47.3 million was planned, but the actual performance was only Rs. 3.7 million, the report said.

Grants given to the poorest of the poor is one of the specialties in Gemidiriya. The village community identifies the destitute through PRAs such as wealth ranking and they are given a grant to overcome their plight.

It was seen that many households belonging to this category have been successful in carrying out different kinds of income earning activities according to their capacity. 10,678 grants have been processed. The total disbursements through one time grants amount to Rs. 85.98m.

Around 4458 one time grantees (42 percent) have accessed Village Saving and Credit Organisations (VSCO), the micro finance arm of Gemidiriya to continue or expand their income generating activities, initiated under the one time grant funds received.

Skills Development is provided for training of youth from the age group 18 to 35 years. Funds are given for training and the course fee is paid directly to the training institute, in the form of a loan to the beneficiary. There have been skills development interventions for 11,765 youth. The amount released as loans is Rs. 145.77m.