SRI LANKA: Does cash for work – work?
COLOMBO, 11 March 2011 (IRIN): As the Sri Lankan government launches a cash-for-work programme in areas hit by recent flooding, following similar schemes in the former conflict areas in the north, experts warn of potential pitfalls (faldgruber) of such schemes.
The new programme will be operating in 12 northern and eastern districts devastated by flooding in January and February, which affected more than two million and displaced close to 700.000, according to the government.
Regional government officials have been instructed to employ those affected by flooding to rebuild rural roads, minor irrigation tanks and channels. Participants are to be paid about 4 US dollar (21-22 DKR) daily for up to four days a week.
More than 3 million dollar has been allocated by the Ministry of Economic Development for the scheme, launched in early March.
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As residents started returning in late 2009 to areas formerly controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in the north, the World Bank implemented a 7,5 million dollar cash-for-work programme. Some 28.652 families benefited between December 2009 and July 2010, according to the bank.
The programme is the largest of about a dozen, which typically run for at most a year, that have operated in the north since the 2004 tsunami.
To limit the number of participants, the Bank set wages 15 percent below market rates and allowed one member per returning family to apply.
The work involves hand-dug construction and small-scale irrigation, and repairs to roads, health clinics, community drinking water facilities or schools.
– The cash-for-work programmes have been quite successful, given the lack of economic activity as the war-displaced began to move back. So far the work has been completed satisfactorily, said G.A. Chandrasiri, the Northern Province governor.
No official unemployment figures are available for the province, but some analysts estimate half the population remains unemployed or is not working enough to support their needs; when cash-for-work programmes end, permanent jobs rarely replace them.
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Begynd fra “The programme was never intended to be a long-term….”
