CRIWMP

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OUR FOCUS

Across the country, climate change related weather aberrations and extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common. The increased intensity of rainfall, frequency of flood and drought incidence in the last ten years, has caused severe hardship to poor farmers across Sri Lanka impacting mostly on agricultural workers in the Dry Zone. 2015 witnessed a significantly higher incidence of high rainfall resulting in localised floods, especially in the post-war North5, affecting roughly 31,500 people, and landslides in 3 districts, affecting 295 people and leading to 7 deaths In addition, droughts affected 7 out of 25 districts and roughly 258,000 people.

The impacts of climate related rainfall variability and extreme events directly affect incomes and food security of Dry Zone farmers and compounds existing vulnerabilities owing to poverty, low incomes, and recovering from three decades of conflict. According to IWMI (2010) farming districts in the dry and intermediate zones are more sensitive to climate change than the rest of the country due to land degradation and heavy reliance on primary agriculture. Recurrent hydrological disasters have eroded the coping capacity of Dry Zone communities making them even less able to plan for and overcome climate-related variabilities in water availability. Climate-change induced droughts also impact access to reliable drinking water as they reduce the sufficiency of water supply and falling water volumes increase the concentration of pollutants. Floods also affect the water quality of drinking water sources, by directly polluting the sources as well as by destroying village irrigation reservoirs that provide a source for drinking water. Farmers in the Dry Zone are also increasingly exposed to water related chronic illnesses such as kidney disease. High rates of morbidity and mortality among young male farmers are reported in the north central and northern provinces.
Women and youth in the Dry Zone communities are particularly more vulnerable to climate change impacts. Women’s role in the household care economy makes them more vulnerable to climate change and disasters due to impacts on household water availability, health of family members and safety of domestic assets such as livestock. Women traditionally manage household water, family gardens and livestock and are in the frontline of managing impacts of reduced water availability and disaster impacts. This affects their own intra-household food security, which can be exacerbated during extreme climate events and in the aftermath of a disaster. Women take full responsibility for the care of children, the disabled and the elderly. In the Dry Zone districts of Sri Lanka the impact of the war and disease has left a number of women widowed and pushed others into precarious work, in Sri Lanka and overseas, as domestic migrant labor.

TARGETING BENEFICIARIES:

Within selected cascades the Project will target households meeting the vulnerability criteria (one or more) for specific investments on climate smart agriculture, rainwater  harvesting, community water supply programmes and flood early warning dvisories, including:

Women headed households
Young unemployed women in target villages
Households with disability or kidney disease
Conflict displaced/resettled
Flood affected in the last five years
Families with children/women displaying low nutrition (underweight/ anemic)
Households with at-risk subgroups such as children and girls (children charged with householdsduties, neglected children not attending school, girls at risk)

THE PROJECT STRATEGY

The key objective of this Project is to strengthen the resilience of smallholder farmers in the Dry Zone to climate variability and extreme events through an integrated approach to water management. This will be achieved through three outputs that build upon previous experience and best practice:

VIS Rehabilitation

Upgrading village irrigation systems and promoting climate resilient farming practices in three river basins of the Dry Zoon: USD 21.04(SLR3, 113Million)
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Safe Dirking Water

Enhancing Decentralized water supply and management solutions to provide access to safe drinking water to vulnerable communities: Budget:USD 9.9
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Disaster Management

Strengthening climate / Weather and hydrological observing, forecasting and water management systems to enhance adaptive capacity ..
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Climate Smart Agriculture

Amongst numerous activities which improve the resilience of climatic vulnerable farmers, measures to enhance the agriculture-based livelihoods of smallholder farmers have taken a very significant place.
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Other GCF Projects

The Green Climate Fund partnered with Ministry of Irrigation , Multiple Agencies, and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Center for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF)


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Wari Saubhagya

National Programme in which the Ministry of Irrigation is empowering the national policy Vision for Prosperity, by implementing the development of 5000 prosperity focused rural irrigation systems