Australian Development Cooperation:
As a neighbour and long- term friend, Australia cares about the future of Sri Lanka. We are committed to supporting the government and private sector to provide economic opportunities for all Sri Lankans. This partnership in development has been consistent for over 70 years.
In 2019, Australia proudly contributed A$27 million in development assistance to our total recorded assistance to Sri Lanka of around A$ 1.5billion. This assistance responded to the tragic Easter Sunday terrorist attacks and humanitarian need, and supported the tourism, agriculture and fisheries sectors, women in work and trading globally, and improvements in the trade and investment environment and local government governance. We continued to support capacity building and people-to-people linkages, including through Australia Awards scholarships, our alumni network, Australian Volunteers, Friendship and Development Assistance grants.
As part of Australia’sresponse to the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks we provided support to directly affected communities,as well as Sri Lanka’s tourism industry to rebuild, including through technical assistance to small and medium tourism enterprises in the Southern, Central and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. The formation of the Sri Lanka Tourism Alliance and the preparation of the Alliance’s Tourism Resilience Plan was assisted by world renowned Australian tourism experts.
A high point in our tourism engagement was our backing of the television reality show ‘Supreme
Chef’. Promoting the culinary industry as a viable career path for men and women, including those with disabilities, the grand finale was televised in March 2019, with the winner travelling to Australia to work with top-flight chefs. “Supreme Chef 2” is planned for 2020.
Attracting Australian pro-surfing legend Mark Occilupo to the Arugam Bay World Pro Surfing 2019 event, and his promotion of community-led tourism, were key parts of our sponsorship of the event with Sri Lanka Tourism.
Increasing tourism income and employment opportunities for men and women across the island supports inclusive growth.Facilitating effective collaboration between the tourism industry and the Ministry of Skills Development and Vocational Training has delivered a portfolio of tourism skills training programmes in districts in the East. Our support of the Sri Lankan tourism industry is yielding good results, with a number of small businesses in the tourism value chain producing authentic Sri Lankan products for the tourism market.
We continued our support in strengthening government capacity on disaster preparedness and improving national information systems, building children’s disaster preparedness skills, and supporting the effectiveness coordination of services in the event of a disaster. Australia also provided dignity and maternity kits for populations affected by floods.
In the agriculture and fisheries sectors, partnering with the International Labour Organisation, we launched the third phase of the Local Empowerment through Economic Development programme in Northern and North Central Provinces. This programme builds on seven years of experience inconnecting local farming and fishing communities to export markets.
Our Women in Work programme, a par t n e r s h i p w i t h the International Finance Cooperation, promoted gender equality in businesses. This include the “She Works” initiative through which eighteen leading Sri Lankan firms, employing over 200,000 people across various sectors, have committed to doing more to boost women’s employment opportunities.
We supported local governments around the island to strengthen their service delivery, revenue collection and inclusive budgeting systems. We continued to support improvements to Sri Lanka’s trade and investment environment, including the Trade Portal and Single Window Trade Facilitation Blueprint, by providing policy and technical advice through the World Bank programmes with key government ministries.
The Australia Awards scholarship programme remains a key plank in our relationship with Sri Lanka. In 2019, 30 masters-level scholarships wereoffered to Sri Lankans for study at Australian universities. The Australia Awards programme also supported 60 Sri Lankans to travel to Australia to undertake training in areas such as Tourism Research, Executive Leadership, International Trade, Women Trading Globally and Inter national Commerc i a l Arbitration.We continue to build the Australia- Sri Lanka alumni network.
We continue to strengthenour Australian Volunteers and New Colombo Plan student programmes here, bringing more Australians every year to Sri Lanka to deepen the people-to-people links between our two countries. Sri Lanka re c e ived three inaugural Friendship Grants, a programme that supports Australian organisations and Sri Lankan Diaspora to develop local communities in Sri Lanka.