Sri Lanka is slowly rebuilding itself. The impact of the tsunami last December was devastating: over 30,000 people lost their lives, and there was untold damage to property and infrastructure. The tidal wave took its toll on over 90% of the island's coastline.
But rebuilding the nation will be a long and costly task for the country. Sarath Amunugama, the country's finance minister, estimates up to five years for reconstruction efforts. The government also says it will cost around $1.8 billion to rebuild shattered communities and infrastructure along its southern, eastern and northern shores.
Yet it's a bill that the country can scarcely afford. Sri Lanka has multilateral and bilateral debts totalling around $8.8 billion. Its 2005 debt-servicing costs are expected to total about $476 million. It also owes around $2 billion to $3 billion to individual countries.
The country recently accepted an offer by the Paris Club for the world's richest creditors to freeze its debt payments until the end of 2005. The group made the offer to all tsunami-hit countries under a plan that would allow deferred payments to be repaid over five years, with one year's grace.
Amunugama plans to press lenders to extend the moratorium to the end of 2007: "We would very much like it if the Club could extend this," he said in an interview with Reuters. "Of course, while we are very grateful for this decision, which will help us to tide over the immediate difficulty, we would like to lobby the G8 to extend this to even 2006 and 2007," he added. Sri Lanka's specific Paris Club debt was not immediately available.
The International Monetary Fund has agreed to delay $113.5 million of Sri Lanka's debt repayments for 2005 to help the island cope with the tsunami costs. "We will try to use this and also the other assistance we have got to start our reconstruction programme, and by the time the next decision is to be made regarding 2006, we will be in a better position to urge our case," Amunugama said.
Water
Recovery work has already started in earnest – most immediately in health and sanitation. The World Health Organization began targeting about one million affected people across 13 districts along the northern, eastern and southern coastline, almost immediately after the disaster. There was focus on prevention of any major epidemics with a routine immunization programme. The Ministry of Health now believes that there is a sufficient supply of chlorine and water purification tablets in all areas.
The water supply has also been restored in almost all districts. More than 1,000 contaminated wells have been cleaned, and the cleaning programme continues. Several packaged water treatment plants have been established to supplement existing water supplies. According to a Unicef report, it is working in nine of the 13 districts affected by the tsunami to restore water and sanitation levels.
Restoring the affected infrastructure and rebuilding has been another major challenge. Sri Lanka has 1,449km of railway tracks. But according to the Ministry of Transport, only about 160km (11%) were affected or damaged. It is estimated that restoration of the tracks will cost US$ 6.55 million.
Further, according to the Ministry of Highways, of Sri Lanka's 96,695km of roads, only about 500km (or 0.5%) were damaged. The damage to the highways was greater in the east than in the south along the road from Batticaloa – Ampara – Trincomalee.
At another level, there was a major task for Sri Lanka Telecom to restore the country's main telecommunications network. Phone services in more than 25 towns were affected initially, but most of these are operating again.
Tourism
One of the prime focuses of the government is to ensure that the tourism industry and its infrastructure are back to normal as soon as possible. Sri Lanka's International Airport, the Bandaranaike International Airport, is situated in Katunayake, 34km north of Colombo. The government says that the airport has been fully operational throughout and was even coping with the additional flights carrying medical aid and supplies from other countries.
The focus on tourism is understandable: it is the fourth largest contributor to Sri Lanka's GDP. When the tsunami struck, there were 17,000 tourists on the island with 6,000 holidaying along the affected coastal areas.
Through a public-private partnership, private-sector organizations brought several internally displaced persons (IDP) camps to a reasonable and habitable state, with the provision of organized relief for the refugees. In order to fulfil medium- and long-term rehabilitation needs, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC), in association with the Employers Federation of Ceylon (EFC) established a National Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation Fund. The CCC started by focusing mainly on long-term rehabilitation of people and businesses affected by the tsunami.
Business
According to Chandrarathna Vithanage, assistant secretary-general of the CCC, the Chamber initiated a financial assistance scheme to revive micro enterprises in the affected areas using funds received through the National Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation Fund. The objective of the financial assistance scheme is to facilitate easy access to seed capital for micro enterprises to enable them to regain their normal livelihood patterns without much delay.
In addition to providing financial assistance, in collaboration with Ernst & Young in Sri Lanka, the Chamber has set up "help desks" at the Ernst & Young offices in Galle, Maara and Hambantota to assist businesses affected by the tsunami, and it is planning to extend this facility to businesses in Kalutara district as well.
Government sources said that around 200,000 families have lost their livelihoods and that they are in the process of designing programmes to revive these livelihoods through cash for work programmes and microfinance institutions. For various reasons, a certain percentage will not receive the benefits. The Sri Lankan industry is now in the process of extending financial and technical assistance to specific target groups. With the Tourism Cluster, the CCC has sought the assistance of USAID to help tourism related micro enterprises affected by the tsunami in Galle, Hambantota and Trincomalee districts.
A large percentage of women have lost their livelihoods due to the tsunami, and as they are generally at a disadvantage in accessing loans and other facilities, it is felt to be very important to have a special focus on women entrepreneurs.