[{"bbox": [80, 107, 240, 131], "category": "Section-header", "text": "Lessons Learnt:"}, {"bbox": [80, 144, 1150, 252], "category": "Text", "text": "Lessons learnt and recommendations from several monitoring missions and strategic evaluations, including the independent Mid-Term Evaluation (MTE) of the Strengthening Reconciliation Processes in Sri Lanka (SRP) programme, have been included in the design of this action. These can be summarised into four main areas: 1) diversification, 2) interconnectedness, 3) capacity building, 4) continuity."}, {"bbox": [80, 263, 1150, 477], "category": "Text", "text": "1) On diversification, the political context in Sri Lanka has been highly volatile in recent years. After a peaceful transition of power from the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa to the administration of his successor Maithripala Sirisena in 2015, political infighting within Sirisena's coalition government culminated in a constitutional crisis in October 2018 that rendered his Government almost dysfunctional. This paved the way for the election of now President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and a landslide win for his party at the parliamentary elections, marking another significant shift in the political arena. As a consequence, significant changes and shifts in the institutional set-up of government – such as repeated cabinet reshuffling, personnel changes, and alterations in the mandates of partner ministries – constitute a major limiting factor in effectively and efficiently delivering sustainable outcomes."}, {"bbox": [80, 487, 1150, 675], "category": "Text", "text": "Working in such a volatile context – which was complicated further by the COVID-19 pandemic and events such as the Easter Sunday Attacks – demands flexibility and adaptability. Diversification, both horizontal and vertical, is hence a key feature of this action. Past experiences (as captured by SRP's MTE) have shown that cooperation with a multitude of stakeholders from the private sector, government and civil society (horizontal diversification) at national, subnational and grassroots levels (vertical diversification) make it possible to quickly respond to changes in context by adapting working modalities and prioritising working with some partners over others if necessary. This also constitutes a risk mitigation measure that increases the action's overall resilience."}, {"bbox": [80, 685, 1150, 900], "category": "Text", "text": "2) On interconnectedness, complex concepts such as peace or social cohesion relate to many different aspects of people's lives. Consequently, they cannot be sustainably advanced by tackling merely one of these aspects but should instead be addressed from multiple, closely interrelated angles. In other words, social cohesion calls for a “whole-of-society” approach. This lesson is built into this action by pursuing the specific objective through three outputs engaging in different areas of intervention – for instance business support, psychosocial support, media, arts – and thus contributing to a more holistic approach to social cohesion and ultimately peace. To further foster this interconnectedness and prevent working in silos, many of those areas, particularly institutional capacity building, are relevant across the three outputs; so are cross-cutting issues such as do no harm, gender, and languages."}, {"bbox": [80, 911, 1150, 1152], "category": "Text", "text": "3) In relation to capacity building, not least due to its violent past, institutional capacities of both government institutions and civil society organisations in Sri Lanka are severely lacking. This constitutes a major limiting factor for implementation on the one hand and for achieving not only short-term, but long-term sustainable impacts on the other hand. Former evaluations such as the SRP-MTE have shown that a relevant strategy in overcoming this limitation lies in understanding the dynamics and needs of both governmental and civil society institutions and in cultivating strong relationships especially with relevant government officials. Institutions need to have the capacity to effectively and efficiently respond to and address the needs of the population, even (and especially) once immediate support from foreign-funded actions has ended. Institutional capacity development is hence an integral part of this action and one of the guiding principles of this action's intervention logic."}, {"bbox": [80, 1161, 1150, 1401], "category": "Text", "text": "4) In relation to continuity, this action is directly in line with a strong recommendation from the SRP-MTE towards continuity. In a post-conflict context replete with interconnected political and societal challenges, progress towards sustainable peace and development is necessarily slow. Change happens over time, and the continuity of successive actions is key to achieving it. This action hence intends to build on previous experiences (particularly from the SRP program), not only in its design but also during implementation. It will make use of the opportunity to seamlessly take over strong working relationships with relevant government institutions and continue partnerships that have been well established in the past. Working with the same civil society partners over several years does not only facilitate collaboration, it also enhances the quality of institutional capacity development that can be delivered to the partners to enhance their role in the social cohesion landscape in Sri Lanka and ensure sustainability of this action."}, {"bbox": [1041, 1663, 1158, 1687], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 10 of 20"}]