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Mercy Corps closed its country programme in Sri Lanka on January 15th, 2012. After seven years of working with communities across the country, we decided to close our operations in light of high taxation and visa difficulties for international organisations, government bans on assistance in post-conflict areas and the decline in available funding. Given these circumstances, as well as Sri Lanka’s socio-economic development levels in relation to the rest of South Asia, we felt we could not continue to work in Sri Lanka and make the kind of impact we would hope.
While we will no longer be active in Sri Lanka, we are proud of the legacy we leave.
Our work in Sri Lanka
In the initial days after the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Mercy Corps deployed an emergency team to Sri Lanka and focused on distributing emergency supplies and cleanup activities, creating cash-for-work temporary jobs and livelihoods recovery projects. We also pioneered community tourism recovery in Arugam Bay. Almost all work was carried out in partnership with the Sri Lankan public and civic sectors.
In time we opened offices in Trincomalee, Ampara, Hambantota and Arugam Bay, and a main office in Colombo. In the four years after the tsunami, we focused on giving communities longer-term recovery support. We created community action groups, improved community-government links, supported business recovery and created over 1,500 jobs. We also worked hard to build the capacity of our local partner organisations, and some of our key local partners are now very prominent in Sri Lanka. Many of the tools and approaches developed by our team in Sri Lanka during this time were later replicated by Mercy Corps elsewhere in the world.
In late 2006, the Sri Lankan civil war re-intensified and our teams responded – starting with emergency relief for people displaced in the 2006 Muthur crisis. Mercy Corps remained engaged in conflict relief and recovery efforts through the end of the Civil War in 2009.
The final phase of Mercy Corps’ work in Sri Lanka, from 2009 to 2011, saw us branch out into interesting new areas, such as micro-insurance projects, exploring feasibility for mobile banking on tea estates and replication of the MICRA microfinance consulting model (currently operating in the Philippines and Indonesia) into Sri Lanka. Ultimately, the demand for MICRA’s services was not strong enough, and the last of Mercy Corps Sri Lanka’s activities came to a close.
The Legacy We Leave
Over seven years, Mercy Corps implemented 22 programmes worth over £13 million in Sri Lanka. These programmes were supported by a variety of international donors, including the US, British and Australian governments, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, numerous international corporations and thousands of individual donors. Most importantly, Mercy Corps’ work assisted hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans as they made the journey from relief to recovery.
We would like to thank all the staff, partners, donors and community members who were involved in our work in Sri Lanka. Together we made lasting contributions to the development of the country and its people.
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