21 Sep Social safeguard management programme

The Social safeguard management programme

Ridiyagama dam is being fully rehabilitated by the DSWRPP under the financial assistance of the World Bank. Even though the final outcome of the rehabilitation of the dam is socially beneficial, negative social impacts are likely to arise during rehabilitation of the dam due to the suspension of water. Therefore, MGC was assigned to carry out a Social Safeguard Management Programme (SSMP) for the communities with IEC meetings, focus group discussions and a socio-economic baseline survey being carried out. This finally led to the development of a Livelihood Support Assistance (LSA) Plan providing assistance to mitigate the negative impacts of the affected communities. At present, the rehabilitation work is in progress and the LSA Plan covering; an Alternate Crop Plan, Coping Assistance Plan, Wage Assistance Plan, Gender Development Plan, and the Domestic Water Supply Plan, are being implemented with the assistance of MGC.