Dr. Asiri Karunawardena, Director General of the National Building Research Organization (NBRO), giving the welcome speech during the meeting.

Representatives of over 30 stakeholder agencies joined the inception meeting of a World Bank funded project titled The Community Landslide Risk Mitigation in Sri Lanka to discuss the methodology and goals of the initiative.

The program will support the Government of Sri Lanka in undertaking a systematic approach to reducing the impacts of landslides, which is considered to be one of the major natural hazards responsible for disturbing the economic stability of hill country districts in Sri Lanka.

The project is being implemented in collaboration with the National Building Research Organization (NBRO), the mandated organization for landslide risk management in Sri Lanka. Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) in partnership with the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) is providing technical assistance to achieve the goals of the project.

The project is also expected to help the Government of Sri Lanka in unifying the efforts of all related government agencies and other stakeholders in landslide risk management to establish a comprehensive framework and an operational long-term action plan for landslide risk management in the country.

Chaired by Ms. Wasantha Samaraweera, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Disaster Management, the project inception meeting took place on 8 May 2017 at BMICH, Colombo. Led by the Team Leader, Mr. N.M.S.I. Arambepola, the project team presented the project tasks and methodology for project implementation.

Eng. Dr. Asiri Karunawardena, Director General of NBRO, Mr. Suranga Kahandawa, Snr. Disaster Risk Reduction Specialist, The World Bank, also attended the Meeting.