Asian Development Bank to provide financial assistance to improve Sri Lanka’s design and implementation of urban projects
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has reportedly made preparations to give a US$ 10 million technical assistance loan for a facility to improve the design and implementation of urban projects in Sri Lanka to make cities more livable.
“Urban projects are complex and require meticulous and significant preparation time to ensure they deliver their intended development impacts,” Senior Urban Development Specialist, Ron Slangen has said.
“The ADB-supported facility will ensure urban projects rolled out in the country are impactful, sustainable, and beneficial to the people of Sri Lanka.”
The ADB has stated that the facility will help projects through advanced feasibility studies and detailed designs incorporating climate resilience and gender inclusivity to make 29 cities more livable.
The facility will help in the preparation of bidding documents for advanced contracts, and safeguard documents in resulting projects, the ADB has further noted.
According to the ABD, a million dollar technical assistance for capacity building for secondary towns and strategic cities is attached to the facility to grow the institutional capacity of project agencies to design and manage urban infrastructure projects, and apply best practices in urban governance improvements.
The Bank in its statement has also noted that urban infrastructure service delivery needed improvement as more than 20 percent of the country’s population lives in cities and contribute 40 percent to the country’s gross domestic product.
“Based on ADB’s experience in Sri Lanka, there is a need to strengthen long-term strategic investment planning and engineering capacity in urban departments to meet the increasing challenges of urbanization,” the statement has said.
OSL take:
The Sri Lankan government has launched a programme to develop urban areas to transform them into more livable areas. The project that has been in the pipeline has now been initiated and the ABD has come forward to provide financial assistance for the programme. This is a business opportunity for foreign companies engaged in urban development and related areas.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/26092018/Z_1 |