Sri Lanka to receive Asian Development Bank aid to improve urban living
The government of Sri Lanka is to reportedly receive aid from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for a new programme aimed at improving urban living conditions with US$ 150 million earmarked for a water project next year.
The Sri Lankan government and the ABD are looking at addressing the challenges faced due to the rapid urbanisation that has caused a strain on infrastructure.
The local media has reported that the project, which covers South Asian cities, is aimed at improving urban infrastructure, water supply, waste water and sewerage and the capacity of state agencies tasked with providing better living conditions in urban areas.
The ADB has state that between 2010 and 2015, South Asian nations like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Nepal urbanised at an average annual rate of 1.8% — double the world average of 0.9%.
“This accelerated urbanization trajectory is causing serious deficits in the provision of adequate urban infrastructure and services,” the ADB has noted in a report.
“Uncontrolled urbanization presents a serious challenge to designing and implementing innovative, citywide, multisector, and technically complex projects, especially when coupled with systemic weaknesses in a very complex, multi-stakeholder urban ecosystem.”
The ADB has further stated that the project pipeline for the five countries in 2019–2022 is estimated to include up to 20 new loan approvals with a combined loan amount of up to US$ 2.6 billion and aim to fill critical infrastructure gaps and respond to the demands of client governments and of ADB’s Strategy 2030 toward making cities more liveable and embedding innovations in projects.
One of the aims of the programme is to make liveable cities projects ‘investment ready’.
According to reports, among the indicative projects for approval in 2019–2022 is US$ 150 million for Sri Lanka in 2020 for an integrated water supply programme.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s overall development programme covering the entire country has created many business/investment opportunities in constructing supplementary infrastructure facilities. The development of urban living is one such area. The aggressive development programme has resulted in the need to uplift urban living standards to be on par with international standards. Therefore, foreign businesses/investors could explore business/investment opportunities in Sri Lanka’s development programme.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/30082019/Z_3 |