Project ID: 1347 Post Tsunami Agricultural and Fisheries Rehabilitation Programme This recovery and sustainable development programme aims at addressing the long-term needs of communities affected by the tsunami disaster of 26 December 2004, the main victims of which were poor farmers and fishers. Unless a major recovery and reconstruction effort is organized and implemented as a matter of urgency, many rural people are likely to sink into even worse poverty. Critical assistance should not be limited to providing immediate relief but also focus on rebuilding skills and assets for the future, so that beneficiaries are less vulnerable and more resilient to shock. Maldives is a coral archipelago in the Indian Ocean consisting of a chain of 1 190 islands that form 26 atolls distributed over an area of 90 000 km2. Most islands are small, flat and low-lying, with an average elevation of 1.6 m above sea level, which renders them particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels. The approximately 300 000 inhabitants of the country are scattered over 200 inhabited islands. The dispersed land mass and low population density significantly increases the cost of delivering essential social and administrative services, resulting in diseconomies of scale and high transport costs. It also poses unique challenges to development, recovery and relief efforts. The overall goal of the programme is to contribute to restoring agricultural gross domestic product to pre-tsunami levels, returning the economy to a stable, long-term growth trend and reducing the fishery sector’s vulnerability to natural disasters. Specifically, it will help to re-establish the country’s fishing operations and augment the household income of fishers by restoring their livelihoods. With regard to agriculture, the programme will work to resume crop production in the atolls so as to rebuild the islanders’ livelihoods and improve their diet, increase household income, reduce poverty and ensure food security. The programme is structured around four components: recovery and sustainable development of the fisheries sector; recovery and sustainable development of the agricultural sector; policy support, capacity-building and technical assistance to the Ministry of Fisheries, Agriculture and Marine Resources (MFAMR); and programme coordination, management and implementation. The programme will be implemented as part of the Government’s Economic Recovery and Reconstruction Programme, under the supervision of an independent steering committee comprising representatives of the Ministries of Finance and Treasury, Atoll Development, National Planning, and MFAMR, and of private-sector organizations. A programme implementation unit will be set up in the MFAMR. The fisheries component will be managed by the Director of Fisheries and Marine Resources; the agriculture component will be managed, at the central level, by the Director of Agriculture and Forestry Services and, at each agriculture centre, by an agricultural officer. Loan and grant amount: Total programme cost: USD 4.99 million |
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