The 3^rd National  Steering Committee (NSC) of the Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) was held at the Ministry of Agriculture today (08^th) under the patronage of Mr. M.B Rohana Pushpakumara, the Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture. A fruitful discussion was conducted to highlight the importance of continuing the activities of the CSIAP by Secretary Mr. Pushpakumara too. The Acting Project Director of the CSIAP Dr. Priyantha Weerasinghe delivered a presentation on the progress and current activities of the CSIAP and Mr. S. Manoharan, Task Team Leader of the CSIAP  for the World Bank pointed out the role of the World Bank in the project.

The NSC is set up at the Ministry of Agriculture, which is the Ministry taking the overall responsibility in executing the CSIAP. The NSC will consist of key officials of the major stakeholder agencies of the central government, provincial government, private sector and the apex level community organizations mainly to provide policy guidance to the project and ensure achieving project’s objectives.

 The main responsibility of the NSC is to provide strategic guidance for project implementation and to be the interface between the central and provincial institutions. The NPSC also approves the annual work program and budget of the project endorses the working arrangements with strategic partners and is briefed by the World Bank (and the Project Director) on the outcomes of implementation support and review missions carried out with the WB team.

 The World Bank Officials, Chief Secretaries of Provinces where the CSIAP being implemented, senior officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, Government Departments and  Provincial Institutions alone with  Provincial Deputy Project Directors and senior officials of the CSIAP were present at the meeting.