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Puttalam, North Western Province, Sri Lanka
2019 - 2021
Short description
This project takes an innovative, integrated approach to peacebuilding, tackling ethno-religious tensions by bringing communities together to provide a sustainable solution for a shared environmental issue, with women at the forefront for conflict prevention. Solid waste management related interventions will be used as a unique vehicle for uniting communities on a common issue. The project will focus on empowering women by supporting their engagement in governance mechanisms and in community resilience initiatives; it will also explore creating economic opportunities and initiating peacebuilding activities to allay communal tensions related to waste management and beyond.
Main purpose
Clean-up / waste management,
Provision / protection / diversification of employment and livelihoods / poverty reduction,
Increasing community cohesion / community building,
Entry point for dialogue and mediation between conflicting groups,
Trust building between conflicting groups
Other expected benefits
Gender equality
Conflict context
Puttalam District in the North-Western Province of Sri Lanka has emerged as a major conflict hotspot with early warnings of radicalized groups’ operations emerging in January 2019 when explosives and a training camp were discovered. These were later linked to the April Easter attacks which as a result erupted with mob-violence targeting Muslims in the North-Western Province. From March 2020 onwards, the emergence of COVID-19 has further exacerbated tensions at the community level, particularly stemming from the isolation of minorities and the influx of medical waste, proving to be hazardous to the multi-ethnic communities in Puttalam and Mannar.
Following the collapse of a dumping site in Colombo in 2017, it was decided that waste would be transported from Colombo to Aruwakkalu (or Aruwaik Kaadu) in Puttalam, which would become the largest landfill in Sri Lanka. Given the pollution already caused by existing projects, grave concerns were raised by residents regarding the landfill’s construction by a firm with little experience, the significant environmental and health hazards, and consequent impact on livelihoods of fisher villages in Puttalam and neighbouring Mannar district. Continued dismissal of their views and the burden of bearing the costs of these projects lead to disempowerment and alienation, creating compelling grounds for radicalisation and drivers for further conflict and violence along ethno-religious divides.
Peace and security contributions
The project using solid waste management as a transformative tool increased social cohesion and brought together the four inter-religious communities – Muslims, Catholics, Hindus and Buddhists – to identify their problems and possible solutions, who started living together in harmony, re-building together what had shattered their peace. More capacity building and community mobilization efforts are still needed to continuously change people’s attitudes on co-existence.
Kaweeda Manohari, 48: “Recently, I had to be a mediator to a conflict between two parties. Since it was fresh in my mind, I was able to use some of the techniques I learned at our training to help the two parties arrive at a compromise and push for a legal solution to their issue.”
Reported elements of good practices
Community-based groups have enhanced capacity in compost production using the ‘lean’ technique, 3R and business development and they now have the ability to clearly classify different types of plastic that can be used as raw materials in enterprises.
Many first-time female local counsellors display high levels of commitment and enthusiasm. They require capacity building, confidence building, mentorship and guidance. Furthermore, creation of cross-party Women Councillors’ Caucuses at the district and provincial level (thus far in the Northern Province) have been effective in mobilising women councillors’ engagement/ representation in existing sub-committees such as finance, infrastructure, health
Reported challenges
Leachate generation and continuous open burning was hindering operations of solid waste management facilities. Once a neighbouring community set fire to the dumpsters that burnt for few days and local authorities needed a huge effort to control it. The project realized that it was due to lack of proper management of the facility and dumpsites and intervened with continuous education programs especially for the LA staff and the general public to have a deeper understanding of the waste management practices and its benefits.
Awareness-raising and public-education programmes have increased women’s engagement with local authorities, particularly as an entry-point to decision-making on issues stemming from ineffective solid waste management
Practical details of implementation
Capacitating women and other stakeholders to address community issues – whether on solid waste management or not – will provide the basis for continued collaboration irrespective of religious and ethnic divides.
Method of monitoring environmental and peace impacts
Monitoring tools to be used include qualitative tools such as process analysis surveys, pre- and post-training evaluation forms, questionnaire surveys, reflection sheet with mood metre methodology, group thought survey, scoring method survey, pre- and post- questionnaire surveys, amongst others. All implementing partners will follow ethical considerations (including ‘do no harm’) before, during and after data collection. All reports will ensure that data is non-identifiable
The project undertook a baseline and perception survey at the inception, as a pre-requisite to inform the subsequent implementation. Further, the findings of the baseline and perception survey were used in establishing missing baselines and targets in the Results Framework. The project has also conducted a perception survey on the waste management service delivery in communities. The survey was conducted in three LA areas using random distribution sampling. A total of 307 individuals were selected for the survey. Of those, 175, or 57% were female. More than 70% of the participants expressed that they are happy with the current SWM services, which have been technically supported by the project.
