The WB Officials discuss the MTR of the CSIAP with the Chief Secretary of EP

The World Bank team led by Mr. John C. Keyser, Senior Agriculture Economist and the Task Team Leader of the Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) discusses the Mid Term Review (MTR) of the CSIAP with the Mr Thusitha. P. Wanigasinghe, the Chief Secretary of the Eastern Province (EP) this morning (30^th) at the Chief Secretariat in Trincomalee. The CSIAP is being implemented in three districts of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara in EP, and the WB officials will be having meetings with the Chief Secretaries of the rest of the provinces where the CSIAP is being implemented.

Dr. Athula Senaratne (Senior Agriculture Specialist), Mr. Seenithamby Manoharan (Consultant - Agriculture & Rural Development), Mr. Sarath Wickramaratne (Consultant - Institutions) and Mr. Mohamed Ameen (Consultant - Capacity Building, Fiduciary) of the World Bank and Mr. Dinesh Kumar Manhachery (Hydrologist, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations Consultant), Professor Rathinasamy Saleth (Climate Smart Agriculture, Producer Collectives & Enterprise Promotion, FAO Consultant); Professor Ravichandran Kannan (CSA Specialist, FAO Consultant), Mr. Azhar Khan (M&E Specialist, FAO Consultant), Senior Officials of Provincial Council and implementing agencies in EP, Eng. R.M.B. Rajakaruna (Project Director), Dr. R.M. Ariyadasa, (Deputy Project Director-EP), Specialists and Officers of the CSIAP were present in this event. Please click Images to see more photos of the MTR of the EP.

The WB Officials meet the Chief Secretary of NWP on the MTR of the CSIAP

The World Bank Officials headed by Mr. John C. Keyser, Senior Agriculture Economist and the Task Team Leader of the Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) met Mr. P.B.M. Sirisena, the Chief Secretary of the North Western Province this morning (29^th) on the Mid Term Review (MTR) of the CSIAP at the Chief Secretariat in Kurunegala. The CSIAP is being implemented in two districts of Kurunegala and Puttalam, and the WB officials will be having meetings with the Chief Secretaries of the other five provinces where the CSIAP is being implemented.

Mr. Sarath Wickramaratne (Consultant - Institutions), Mr. Mohamed Ameen (Consultant - Capacity Building, Fiduciary) and Ms. Anjali Vitharanage (Procurement Specialist)of the World Bank,  Mr. Azhar Khan (M&E Specialist, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations Consultant), Senior Officials of Provincial Council and implementing agencies in NWP,  Eng. R.M.B. Rajakaruna (Project Director), Mr. W.M.S. Wijesinghe, (Acting Deputy Project Director-NWP), Specialists and Officers of the CSIAP attended this event. Please click Images to see more photos of the MTRof the NWP.

The Mid Term Review of the CSIAP commences at HARTI, Sri Lanka

 The Mid Term Review (MTR) of the Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) commenced this morning (23rd) at the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute (HARTI), Colombo.

The purpose of this Mid Term Review is to assess the continued relevance of the CSIAP’s development objectives, review implementation progress in achieving the goals, assess adequacy of the implementation arrangements in terms of remaining time frame, assess the overall implementation risks, review fiduciary and safeguard compliances, and agree on changes needed in the Financing Agreement to complete the project as agreed. 

Mr. John C. Keyser (Senior Agriculture Economist, Task Team Leader of the CSIAP), Dr. Athula Senaratne (Senior Agriculture Specialist), Mr. Seenithamby Manoharan (Consultant - Agriculture & Rural Development),  Mr. Sarath Wickramaratne (Consultant - Institutions), Mr. Mohamed Ameen (Consultant - Capacity Building, Fiduciary), Ms. Nadeera Rajapakse (Environmental Specialist), Ms. Sithara Athapatthu (Safeguard Team) and Ms. Samanmalee De Alwis (Program Assistant) of the World Bank,  Mr. Dinesh Kumar Manhachery (Hydrologist/Consultant), Professor Ravichandran Kannan (CSA Specialist) of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Eng. R.M.B. Rajakaruna (Project Director), Specialists and Officers of the CSIAP attended this event. Please click Images to see more photos of the MTR.

Calling qualified applicants for 102 vacancies at the CSIAP

The Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) is calling qualified candidates for vacancies below advertised in Sunday Observer published on 13th this month.

Deputy Project Director - 01 Position (North Central Province), Water Resources Development Specialist - 01 Position (North Central Province, Engineer - 03 Positions (Provincial Level), Senior Technical Officer- 08 Positions (Provincial Level), Senior Procurement Officer - 06 Positions (Provincial Level), Procurement Officer - 01 Position (Project Management Unit), Agri-Business & Marketing Linkage Officer - 06 Positions (Provincial Level), Draughtsman - 06 Positions (Provincial Level), Technical Officers - 18 Positions (Provincial Level), Monitoring & Evaluation Officer - 01 Position (Project Management Unit), Finance Officer - 01 Position (Project Management Unit), Social Safeguard Officer - 02 Position (North Central Province/Northern Province), Gender Development Officer - 01 Position (Uva Province) and Agriculture Facilitator - 47 Positions (Provincial Level).

 Please visit  https://csiap.lk/vacancies for further information

The CSIAP discovers its Digitalization Strategy to support farmers in hotspot areas

IEC & ICT Specialist Mr. Mallawaarachchi explaining the CSIAP's Digitalization Strategy

The Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) discovered its Digitalization Strategy to be implemented by establishing full-pledged ICT unit within each of the 02 ASCs at Parangiyawadiya of Anuradhapura District and Weerawila of Hambantota District with trained officials and the necessary equipment to provide required data related to weather forecast, market, new technology for farmers living in hot spot areas, where the CSIAP is being implemented, in the Agri tech vendor forum with BMGF (The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) held at the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) yesterday (10th).

 As a pilot project, the CSIAP plans to implement this project in 02 ASCs out of 47 ASCs covering 02 hotspot areas this year. Accordingly, it is expected to extend the implementation of the project in the rest of the ASCs in the 11 hotspot areas gradually within the period of the CSIAP with the lessons learned to develop the ASCs as effective One-stop Service Centers.

The Department of Agrarian Development will implement the ASC Digitalization project with the cooperation of the CSIAP to provide efficient service to the farming community within the project command areas. In this process, the project intends to provide farmers with a better service via the ASC to address issues of neediest and pressing information such as information on weather, crop production technology, market prices of crops, marketing opportunities and marketing links, disaster information which might affect the productivity of farmlands etc. A web-based communication system to provide market and product information, weather information, emergency alerts (early warning), E-Governance data and agriculture-related information,  an Online Market Place (OMP) to sell agriculture-related products online,  Interactive Digital Smart Board as multimedia,  wireless portable sound system, desktops to explore knowledge, and kiosk machine to obtain various services such as allowing users to pay utilities, phone, loan repayments, credit cards or even insurance for beneficiaries will be introduced to ASCs under digitalization said  Mr. Samantha Mallawaarachchi, IEC & ICT Specialist of the CSIAP by delivering the presentation on how to execute the ASC Digitalization plan in selected two ASCs in this forum.

BMGF believes that climate change is a major issue facing all of us and focuses on assisting Sri Lanka in the development of Farmer Data Management Systems and Digital Strategy, and ICTA will drive this initiative. The BMGF, a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. The ICTA organized this forum together with the BMGF in Colombo. Representing the BMGF Mr.  Siddharth Chaturvedi, top officials of the private sector with senior officials of ICTA led by its Chairman Mr. Oshada Senanayake participated in this forum. Please click Images to see more photos of this programme.

Empowering Women on Household Food Security and Rural Resilience

Unique Home Garden Programme - A case study from Sri Lanka

The empowerment of female farmers and female-headed households remains a key project development objective of the Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP). The ongoing CSIAP since 2019 has not only mandated 50% of beneficiaries in all its programmes to be females but also designed and implemented an exclusively women-centric programme aiming to create Climate-Smart Nutritional Sensitive Home Gardens (CSNSHG) across 11 economically and climatically vulnerable districts in Sri Lanka.

 The CSIAP has helped to create 4,230 home gardens so far - 2695 in 2020, and 1535 in 2021. Being part of the homesteads, these gardens are small in size, usually about 0.10 ha (or 0.25 ac). But the combined area of all home gardens established so far is about 398 ha. Under CSNSHG, beneficiaries are provided with seeds, planting materials, water-saving equipment, training and knowledge transfer, and extension support free of charge. Exposure visits are also arranged to facilitate experience sharing and learning across regions. In view of its crucial role in household food, nutritional security, cost-cutting and income addition, CSNSHG has an excellent reception among women across project regions, so much so that it is one of the most popular and impact-oriented programmes of CSIAP.

Results from a 2021 survey provide evidence of significant income and consumption impacts of the CSNSHG programme (see Tables 1 and 2), on average, each garden produced vegetables worth LKR 16,817/family/season. Besides, savings in food costs are also reported to the tune of LKR 4,733/family/season. While 30% of families derived income from vegetable sales, 33% of families reported significant savings from food costs. As 70% of families reported self-consumption of home garden outputs or sharing the same with neighbours, there is evidence for the contributory role of CSNSHG to household food and nutrition security, especially during the challenging period of the pandemic. 

In terms of sustainability, CSNSHGs are designed to support each family with only a one-time investment and related support, but having gained knowledge and realized benefits, more than 90% of families have reported continuing with their home gardens even after the programme.

While the economic and food security impacts of CSNSHG have a powerful empowering role, equally, if not more, the subtle but real impacts on rural women in terms of self-reliance, organizational inclusiveness, sense of solidarity, leadership skills, and time reallocation from routine chores towards more productive and fulfilling activities are important. The formation of women producer societies, training and skill development programmes, and group exposure visits have also created such impacts. These impacts were observed during field visits. It is also observed that homestead vegetable production fits well to women’s livelihood strategies and time and resource availability.

In addition, CSNSHG has also created new knowledge and skills in applying climate-smart agriculture (CSA) technologies, organic fertilizers developed from composted household wastes, and integrated farming systems on a small scale at the homestead level. Since women have learned to produce seeds and planting materials for the next season, the cost on them has been reduced thereby improving the chance of continuity of home gardens. There are also significant spill-over effects on their children as they develop new knowledge on food security, nutrition, and health while they observe their home garden. From a larger perspective, home gardens are one of the key mechanisms for ensuring economic and climate resilience at the local and household level.

 Overall, CSNSHG programme and CSIAP, in general, have contributed significantly not only to the economic and food security dimensions but also to the social and human development of women empowerment in rural Sri Lanka. Such contributions have advanced various SDGs both directly and indirectly. While the contributions are more direct to SDG 5 (Gender Equality), they occur essentially via their impacts on SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). 

On this International Women’s Day, it is worthwhile to record, share, and disseminate such positive evidence of women empowerment occurring at the grassroots level of countries such as Sri Lanka. Hope more such local and international evidence of this nature would flow in coming years!  

By Ms. Sharmila Shanmuganathan, Gender Development Officer, Project Management Unit, CSIAP               

Reorientation workshop to speed up CSIAP’s activities and achieve targets in 2022

The CSIAP Project Director Eng. R.M.B. Rajakaruna addressing audiance

 A reorientation workshop to speed up Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) activities and achieve its targets in 2022 is being held on 4th (today) and 5th (tomorrow) at the National Training Center of the Department of Agrarian Development, Pothuhara, Kurunagala. This residential workshop, which takes place under the patronage of the CSIAP Project Director Eng. R.M.B. Rajakaruna, focuses on strategies and way forward for achieving CSIAP’s targets this year. Provincial Deputy Project Directors, Subject Specialists and Officers attend this programme. Please click Images to see events of this workshop.