President’s ambitious poverty eradication program gets Cabinet approval

 President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa

• Program aims at providing jobs, homes, credit facilities to low-income families
• Policy framework in keeping with UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals

Cabinet gave its approval this week to a proposal by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa for the National Program for the Eradication of Poverty.

The program will be implemented to ensure the food security of low-income families by providing them essential food items, along with a program to provide 100,000 jobs for them.

Its other components include providing low-income families with houses under the ‘One House – One Village’ program on an accelerated basis; implementing the rural road development program of 100,000 km to provide quality road access facilities to at least one million households, and providing easy access to credit prioritising small business development, self-employment and household needs, and household-level livelihood development initiatives.

The eradication of poverty in the country has been identified as one of the top priorities of the Government in order to create an inclusive and suitable development under the Government’s National Policy Framework “Saubagyaye Dakma”. 

The Development Goals identified in the Government’s Policy Framework are also consistent with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.