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The Health System Enhancement Project (the original project), for $60 million (comprising $37.5 million in concessionary loan and $12.5 million grant, and $10 million equivalent from the Government of Sri Lanka in counterpart funds), was approved in October 2018, effective since February 2019 and is due to close on 30 November 2023. The original project aims to improve efficiency, equity, and responsiveness of the primary health care (PHC) system based on the concept of providing universal access and continuum of care to provide high quality package of essential health services. The original project pursues an equity perspective by targeting underserved populations access to PHC.
Due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic affecting Sri Lanka in March 2020, $15 million was reallocated from the original project ($10 million from the concessionary loan and $5 million from the grant) via memos dated 25 March and 10 April 2020 to meet the urgent financing requirements on curtailing the COVID-19 pandemic. The government made this reallocation request from the original project as COVID-19 related interventions are coming under the scope of the project which included interventions to improve communicable disease surveillance and strengthen IHR (output 2). The reallocated resources were requested for meeting the emergency activities related to scaling up of molecular biology laboratory capacity, increasing the accessibility to emergency medical equipment at hospitals, expanding high dependency and intensive care units, expanding oxygen accessibility, and increasing the availability of consumables like surgical masks, personal protection equipment and reagents and other consumables for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing and screening of COVID-19.
The exponential increase of COVID-19 cases in all provinces since April 2021 has created an emergency need to scale up services across the entire country to better respond to COVID-19 patients without compromising care of patients due to other illnesses. A comprehensive assessment has been undertaken by PMU, PIUs and the ADB consultation mission in November 2020 in addition to follow-on consultations with the government in May 2021, which confirmed the requirement of $110 million additional financing to immediately address the emergency needs due to increasing COVID-19 burden while also ensuring the overall project (original project plus additional financing) successfully completes its targets on-time and on-budget. Furthermore, under HSEP many contracts for the second round of civil works are ready to be awarded by Q4 2021. More funds are required to make the payments for the first round of ongoing civil works as many of those are near completion. The additional financing should be ready by September 2021 to continue the ongoing project progress.
The additional financing provided by the proposed investment is the most appropriate and efficient modality to finance the scale up of the outputs of a well performing ongoing project, addressing the government’s urgent financing requirements to support and manage the third wave of COVID- 19 pandemic, and the replenishment of reallocated funds approved in 2020 to complete the originally planned activities mainly related to PHC development.
| Responsible ADB Officer | Jayasundara, Herathbanda |
| Responsible ADB Department | South Asia Department |
| Responsible ADB Division | Sri Lanka Resident Mission |
| Executing Agencies | Ministry of Health Dr. Nihal G. Wijesooriya Inland Revenue Bldg. Sir Chittamplam A. Gardiner Mawatha P.O. Box 513, Colombo 2, Sri LankaMinistry of Health Mr. W.M. Piyasena PMU@HSEP.LK Suwasiripaya, No.385, Rev.Baddegama Wimalawansa Thero Mawatha |
ACCESS TO INFORMATION
You can submit an information request for project information at: https://www.adb.org/forms/request-information-form
ADB has a two-stage appeals process for requesters who believe that ADB has denied their request for information in violation of its Access to Information Policy. You can learn more about filing an appeal at: https://www.adb.org/site/disclosure/appeals
ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF ADB
The Accountability Mechanism is an independent complaint mechanism and fact-finding body for people who believe they are likely to be, or have been, adversely affected by an Asian Development Bank-financed project. If you submit a complaint to the Accountability Mechanism, they may investigate to assess whether the Asian Development Bank is following its own policies and procedures for preventing harm to people or the environment. You can learn more about the Accountability Mechanism and how to file a complaint at: http://www.adb.org/site/accountability-mechanism/main.
