WB funded Gemidiriya touches one million poor

"South Asia has experienced a long period of robust economic growth averaging 6 percent a year over the past 20 years. This strong growth has translated into declining poverty and impressive improvements in human development.

Yet poverty remains rampant in many areas and South Asia has the world's largest concentration of poor people-more than one billion people who earn less than $2 a day," states the World Bank annual report for 2010.

In the face of the deteriorating global economy the region's growth prospects dimmed. Regional growth decelerated from 8.9 percent in 2007 to 6.3 percent in 2009 driven by the drop in investment growth and private consumption.

The decline in growth since the economic crisis was the smallest of all regions of the world, however South Asia is rebounding strongly with the World Bank projecting GDP growth of 7 percent in 2010 and 8 percent in 2011, says the annual report.

The report says that with the end of the armed conflict in May 2009 Sri Lanka is facing a historic opportunity for development and reconciliation.

During the fiscal year 2010 the bank approved a $ 65 mln package to support the return of 100,000 IDPs to their places of origin in the Northern Province and to restore their livelihoods.

The bank supported the rehabilitation of provincial roads in the Eastern, Northern, Southern and the Uva Province with $ 105 mln credit.

It also provided $ 75 mln for the second phase of the Gemidiriya, a community driven development program that has touched the lives of nearly one mln poor Sri Lankans in more than 1,000 villages.