Batticaloa, June 15, 2010 ─ The World Bank Sri Lanka signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Batticaloa Municipal Council and the Eastern University of Sri Lanka today establishing a Development Resource Center (DRC) in the east coast of Sri Lanka. This knowledge sharing partnership aims to increase access to development information and will complement the work being carried out by the recently established Development Resource Centers at the University of Colombo and Marga Institute.
“At this critical time of transition to a country in lasting peace, Sri Lanka should best utilize the power of knowledge sharing for development and reconciliation” said Naoko Ishii, Country Director for the World Bank in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. “We trust the three centers will play a key role in helping public access information related to World Bank operations in Sri Lanka as well as establishing a national network of development information dissemination.”
The launching of the partnership coincides with the implementation of the first phase of the World Bank’s new policy on Access to Information on July 1. Through this new policy, the Bank will make much more information available on key decisions made during project development and implementation to enable greater awareness of Bank-supported operations to achieve better development results. New information that will be available includes decisions of Project Concept Review meetings, project supervision missions, and mid-term project reviews.
The new policy provides for much greater access to information about projects under implementation to enable the public to track a project through the course of the project lifecycle
