Strengthening One Health Laboratory Systems in Sri Lanka for Health Emergency Preparedness (WB-P510192)

Regions
  • South Asia
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Countries
  • Sri Lanka
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • World Bank (WB)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Proposed
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
A
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Voting Date
Sep 25, 2026
Date when project documentation and funding is reviewed by the Board for consideration and approval. Some development banks will state a "board date" or "decision date." When funding approval is obtained, the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
Borrower
Government of Sri Lanka - Ministry of Health
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Education and Health
  • Law and Government
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Grant
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 2.34 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 18.40 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Bank Documents
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ WB website

Updated in EWS Sep 9, 2026

Disclosed by Bank Aug 17, 2025

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Contact the EWS Team

Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

According to the Bank’s website, the objective of this project is to strengthen national laboratory systems’ capacity and quality with a One Health approach for timely detection of priority pathogens with public health emergency potentials.

The operation will support Sri Lanka to improve its national capacities on PPR and One Health laboratories, as well as the related capacity for surveillance.

Component 1: Strengthening Laboratory Systems and Quality Management. This component focuses on modernizing laboratory operations and establishing consistent quality standards across the public health sector.
Subcomponent 1.1: Upgrade existing Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) to provide real time, patient level information and sharing laboratory information among the One Health partners.
Subcomponent 1.2: Strengthen key laboratories at the Medical Research Institute (MRI) that have been identified as National Centers of Excellence.
Subcomponent 1.3: Strengthen laboratory quality management system at public human health laboratories.

Component 2: Expanding Laboratory Capacity for Priority Disease Detection and Biosafety. To detect and respond to both existing and emerging health threats, Sri Lanka requires laboratories with advanced diagnostic capacity and strong biosafety measures. This component enhances the country's ability to detect priority pathogens through expanded testing capabilities in all laboratories and establishes a modular Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) facility to carry out these procedures at MRI.
Subcomponent 2.1: Enhance the biosafety capacity of the national public health reference laboratory (Medical Research Institute) by achieving BSL 3 accreditation.
Subcomponent 2.2: Strengthen laboratory testing capacities for detection of priority diseases.

Component 3: Strengthening the One Health Approach Through strengthening infection prevention and Bio security. Addressing zoonotic, environmental, and aquatic health threats requires well-equipped, sector-specific reference laboratories. This component will support the upgrading of infection prevention control and adherence to environment standards in the One Health reference Laboratories).

Component 4: Project Management and Administration, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E). This component will include project management, monitoring and evaluation activities.

Early Warning System Project Analysis
For a project with severe or irreversible impacts to local community and natural resources, the Early Warning System Team may conduct a thorough analysis regarding its potential impacts to human and environmental rights.

The Environmental risk of the project is rated Moderate, given its site-specific Environmental Health & Safety risks associated with BSL3 and incinerators. All the bio safety related impacts will be expected during the operational phase of the project.

The project’s social risks are rated ‘Substantial’ at concept stage, primarily due to health and safety risks to communities and project workers associated with operating BSL-3 laboratories at MRI and incinerators at VRI and NARA.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.

The total value of the fund will be US$18.4 million and the WB financing will be USD 2.34 million.


Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

CONTACT POINT - World Bank

Task Team Leader: Kari L. Hurt
Title: Senior Health Specialist
Email: Khurt@worldbank.org

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

To submit an information request for project information, you will have to create an account to access the Access to Information request form. You can learn more about this process at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/access-to-information/request-submission

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE WORLD BANK

The World Bank Inspection Panel is the independent complaint mechanism and fact-finding body for people who believe they are likely to be, or have been, adversely affected by a World Bank-financed project. If you submit a complaint to the Inspection Panel, they may investigate to assess whether the World Bank is following its own policies and procedures for preventing harm to people or the environment. You can contact the Inspection Panel or submit a complaint by emailing ipanel@worldbank.org. Information on how to file a complaint and a complaint request form are available at: https://www.inspectionpanel.org/how-to-file-complaint

How it works

How it works