June 18, Colombo: World Bank today announced its support to design and implement e-governance in Sri Lanka. Naoko Ishii, Country Director Sri Lanka said the World Bank will continue to provide the e-government assistance to the Government of Sri Lanka through the e-Sri Lanka Development Project.

The focus of the program is to achieve a customer-oriented model of governance with “one-stop service” delivery mechanisms and under this model, citizens are able to receive government services at a “single window” of the government, rather than running around numerous government agencies, Ms. Ishii said.

Ms. Ishii said the Sri Lankan government has taken vital steps in this direction bringing the government close to the people by streamlining the services at the Department of Immigration and at motor vehicle registration offices.

The Director thanked President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga for his efforts to materialize the government’s vision of using IT to connect the population, in particular, rural youth, to the markets and the outside world as a vital factor necessary for growth and poverty reduction.

She also paid tribute to late Prof. V.K. Samaranayke, Chairman of ICTA (Information and Communication Technology Agency), one of the visionaries who convinced the World Bank to take this agenda more seriously. “We are now mourning with you on this great loss to Sri Lanka and the global ICT and development community.” She said.

She said formulating the strategy is the easy part. “The hard work and the heavy lifting come when we want to implement the strategy.”