The Ministry of Plantation Industries of Sri Lanka entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with a French expert in the rubber industry, KSAPA, for capacity building of Rubber Smallholders in Sri Lanka.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Ministry of Plantation Industries of Sri Lanka and KSAPA was finalised with KSAPA Managing Director, Raphael HARA signing it at the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Paris in the presence of Chargé d'affaires a.i. and Diplomatic Staff of the Embassy, Deputy Head of Unit, Direct Financing, Ministry of Economics and Finance in France Elise Bengo and Program Manager at KSAPA Ariedn Covo on 05 January 2023. The Secretary to the Ministry of Plantation Industries Janaka Dharmakeerthi signed the MOU on 16 December 2022 on behalf of Sri Lanka.
The focus of this MoU is to ensure the designing and execution of "Rubber Improvement of Value Chain & Embedded Smallholders Resilience (RIVER) Project" to implement capacity-building activities in the Monaragala District in Sri Lanka targeting farmer communities that are mainly oriented towards rubber production.
This project is expected to strengthen the capacity of around 6,000 rubber smallholders within the Monaragala Rubber Development Project Region with a special focus on the Badalkumbura and Medagama areas. The project intends to harness digital technologies and hands-on technical training to improve rural rubber smallholder farmers’ knowledge, performance, livelihoods, social outlook as well as environmental impacts.
The project would be mainly funded by the FASEP grant of the French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Recovery. Additional funds will be provided by the Michelin Group of France as a foreign grant. The project will be designed and implemented by KSAPA, a French public liability company possessing the relevant expertise. Messrs Camso Loadstar in Sri Lanka, which is a subsidiary of the Michelin Group, will also contribute to the operational activities of the project.