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ABSTRACT
Sustainable livelihood development project is a vital modern approach in fighting against poverty and reducing unemployment. An agricultural livelihood development project had been implemented in Manmunai South West Divisional Secretariat division of Batticaloa district during the period 2010 - 2015. The interventions were channeled through four programmes; "Family Development Plan", "Goat farming", "Cattle farming" and "Poultry farming". A research was carried out with the objective to assess the impact of agricultural livelihood development project on livelihood assets of the project beneficiaries. Structured questionnaires were administered to a random sample of 100 project beneficiaries through personal interview in selected five Grama Niladhari divisions. Data were analyzed using SPSS by employing frequencies and percentages. The study indicates that the agricultural livelihood project had made medium level impact on livelihood assets of the project beneficiaries in the study area. Further, most of the project beneficiaries belong to impact category range of medium to high level impacts. As such, the project had made a positive impact on the livelihood assets of project beneficiaries in the study area.
Key words: financial capital, human capital, natural capital, physical capital, project beneficiaries
INTRODUCTION
Agriculture has been the backbone of the Sri Lankan economy with one-thirds of the population being dependent on it (1). The agricultural sector contributes about 11.1 percent of the country's Gross Domestic product (GDP) and 31.0 percent of total employment. It is the livelihood of more than 1.8 million farmers (2). Although the country is moving towards industrialization, the agricultural sector still continues to be an important sector in the economy and contributes substantially to foreign exchange earnings and to GDP (3).
Poverty is widespread in the rural areas of Sri Lanka (4). The initiatives to improve livelihoods of rural population in Sri Lanka have been many, but the effect varies. Because of this reason, Sri Lanka is characterized by a prevalent income inequality (5). The degree and nature of poverty among rural communities has headed to implementation of a range of development projects aimed at improving rural livelihoods (6). Thus, many of the projects have been implemented with the argument that future economic, social, and environmental development among rural communities (7).
The District of Batticaloa is one of three districts in the Eastern Province of Sri...