A cabinet paper put forward by the Prime Minister this week noted that in the ‘2017 Country Portfolio Program Performance Review (CPPR)’, “the Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs and the World Bank were of the view that lengthy project preparations and inception processes have an adverse impact in achieving the desired outcomes and smooth implementation of the projects.”

The World Bank thus agreed to provide prior funding assistance of USD 4 million for World Bank funded development projects through the PPPF to carry out successful project preparation, design and initial implementation activities.

The PPPF, the cabinet paper stated will provide the government, “the certainty of funding availability for preparatory activities, allowing government entities to plan and prepare public investments efficiently”.

The objectives of the PPPF have been described as, “to improve quality at the inception of projects, to improve the implementation mechanisms, to enhance the capacity within implementing agencies of the GoSL and to produce standard project preparation documents”

The PPPF is to be centrally managed and coordinated by the National Planning Department of the Ministry of national Policies and Economic Affairs and implemented through various Project Implementation Units (PIU).

Its time frame has been decided to be three years from July 2017 to June 2020 and will expire at the end of the current Country Partnership Framework (June 2020).

The World Bank will monitor the implementation progress of the PPPF and project teams of the World Bank will work directly with the PIUs to ensure that the PPPF is implemented as expected.

Cabinet also granted approval to allocate USD 3 million for project preparatory activities of the PPPF for the year 2018.

They also allocated Rs 20 million in 2018 from the Consolidated Fund for the Foreign Finance Associated Domestic Expenses of the PPPF to cover taxes and other administrative expenses.