SPATIAL PLANNING SYSTEM IN SRI LANKA

PARTICIPATORY GIS FOR RURAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL LEVEL

Sustainable development can be defined as constant improvement in the quality of life for the current generation, similar or better quality of life for subsequent generations; all from the same source of the earth. As such, knowledge for sustainable development should incorporate diverse knowledge systems, in terms of Geography as well as provenance (formal and indigenous knowledge); even so, it tends to originate primarily from scientific knowledge.

Knowledge divide affects on sustainable development in many ways. Firstly, it increases the communication gap between communities with scientific knowledge and those with traditional knowledge working in grass-root realities. In terms of ICT-enable development efforts, there are numerous examples where this has led to the adoption of scientific technologies which do not fit the ground realities and have negative implications in terms of development and power relations.

Empower of the people generate with information, money and knowledge. Village communities are well informatics on their needs. During the last few decades most village development activities have been implemented by the plans formulated outside the villages at Urban Centers with less understanding on the village realities and imposed upon village communities. With too many variables rural development in Sri Lanka is complex phenomenon and the effectiveness of the rural development program is even more complex. Rural development should look beyond project initiatives and governance. It has to be participatory at grass root level. New possibilities besides being transparent and holding people accountable have to induce beneficiary participation and ownership to arrest the problem of rural poverty, inequality and environment degradation in a sustainable manner.

Information Communication Technology (ICT) can play a significant role in decision support, improving services and empowering society at rural level. In the context of “digital divide”, it is important to have “digital participation” at the village level. Participatory GIS is empowerment and inclusion of marginalized population, with less voice in the public arena.
Government, non-government organizations and non-profit groups are a major force behind many programs. It is believed that access to information is the doorway to more effective governance for community empowerment. Many centralized poverty alleviation programs have been introduced to Sri Lanka without considering the community needs due to lack of spatial information during the last two decades. Lack of Regional Information was a significant barrier behind this failure. Information Technology should be used in rural sector more often to make information and data base development plans. This study draws a wide attention to increase the productivity, efficiency, competitiveness and growth in all spheres of human activity.

GIS Based Monitoring System

Good governance practices are prerequisite in a project of this nature to enable target communities and their organizations to get things done logically and in harmony with the principles, approach, strategies, norms and values of the project. Accurate data collection and data processing, analyzing are main activities at Pradesiya Sabha level. Monitoring project activities and evaluation are main activities for effective and efficient project implementation, sustaining project goals and ensuring civic engagement in project implementation.

In economical and social development, eliminating regional development differences and providing a nation wide balanced improvement, Pradesiya Sabha should be accepted as main units. When considered that a planned improvement consist of local, regional and national stages, PS forms the most important administrative step for planning and determination of strategies at local level

Setting up a DBMS within a PS offers many advantages both in terms of facilitating the use of GIS and also for effective data management. These include having a centralized data repository which prevents time-costly and error-prone data duplication as well as data redundancy.

DEVELOPMENT OF A GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE

Regional Geographical Information infrastructure has become an essential element of the development of any country. Creation of geographical mapping and administrative information system by preparing digital maps as a platform for production of general and thematic maps required for development and administrative purposes. Final objective is to strengthen planning and resource management in Sri Lanka through the development of a geographical information infrastructure for access geographic data for decision making.

Local Governance and accountability practices help stakeholders involved in project implementation to trust toward the utilization of limited and available resources in the best possible way in order to resolve the prevailing issues in target communities. The existence of good governance will be the only mean in empowering local communities, entrenching the strong institutions at village level for effective and efficient project implementation, sustaining project goals and ensuring civic engagement in project implementation.

GIS is simply a part of Pradesiya Sabha information management system. It is the component that best manages data with a spatial component (i.e. a reference to a specified point or location) and provides a platform from which data can be easily sourced, data quality can be verified, the decision-making process can be made transparent, and data-gathering times can be significantly reduced.
Setting up a DBMS within Pradesiya Sabha offers many advantages both in terms of facilitating the use of GIS and also for effective data management. These include having a centralized data repository which prevents time-costly and error-prone data duplication as well as data redundancy. Working with ‘real-time’ data sourced at a centralized data repository increases workload efficiency and confidence in the quality of the data for data users. If PS can be confident in the integrity of the data that it is using, so will those charged with applying the data to understanding trends and relationships. The public will also grow to trust the decision-making process if data integrity can be guaranteed or has been demonstrated; only then can public participation events be successful and real sense of trust and cooperation with the community and the relevant stakeholders.
As well as facilitating data sharing and allowing (or preventing where necessary) multi-user editing of large databases, a DBMS can assist in data security issues and provide the performance and support required for complex operations and models. It provides the ability to offer web services networks in addition to enhanced desktop capabilities and data management functions. There can be some criticisms of this kind of approach to managing a GIS within a PS, particularly when departments are disparate in the nature and culture of their work. Different departments work to different deadlines and have different priorities. There may be inter-departmental disagreements and disparities over access to information, styles of leadership, use of data standards, available equipment, and training requirements. Issues of data ‘ownership’ and control of this information may also act as barriers to consensus regarding the best approach to an organization’s corporate- or enterprise-level GIS and data management.

The first step is determination of scope of regional level requirement. We consider the Divisional Secretariat level as well as PS level. They are the key players in the regional development process. They need much information for their day today activities such as, Agricultural, Economical, Social and Cultural activities to plan their development activities.

Application of GIS for planning of a multi village water supply scheme

GIS also assisted the planning of a multi village water supply scheme in Mahiyangana. This is another location mapping exercise to help designing the water supply system helping to reduce costs and redundancies and have efficiency, and accuracy in decision making.

GIS for Poor Village Selection

Unsatisfied Basic Need Index (UBNI) offers a classification of the GNDs as most poor, poor, an average and less poor and least poor. This data has been field tested by the Department of Census and Statistics and it is the latest classification available for selecting poor communities. Unsatisfactory Basic Needs Index (UBNI) in order to identify most suitable GNDs for the project
Development activities targeted within the village to improve the living conditions and economic status of the community members especially the poorest, most vulnerable and poor.

Information regarding the distribution of poverty shown in above map can be used for the targeting the most vulnerable area to be developed. This map shows that the most of the GNDs (92%) are poor. Low Road density of this GN division is correlated with this poor GND. Most of GNDs need to develop accessibility to reduce the poverty in this area. Project target is to rural regional area development by linking remote villages by physical infrastructure development through transport, communication and trade connectivity.

This component focuses on Institution Building of Pradeshiya Sabha. A bottom up approach for prioritizing, planning, budgeting of Pradeshiya Sabha plans, which reflect the regional priorities is adopted. Further, it will try to bridge the existing critical gaps in terms of connectivity, infrastructure and social services which are hindering the economic empowerment of the cluster of villages and finally the sub-region.

GIS Map helped to open eyes of all participants in the planning contexts. This map transparent the situation and the distribution of the village level poverty. A participatory workshop started after analyzing the overall poverty situation in the Pradesiya Sabha. Next step was what and where questions analyzing using the existing data. GIS mapping technology was reliable and impressive tool for data presentation and visualization. Demographical and economical background was mapped and accessibility of the resources also visualized using the Arc GIS soft ware. All maps were shown to the community for the understanding of the existing situation of their own community: the Angunakolapelessa Pradesiya Sabah.

GIS for rural Community Development in Sri Lanka

Rural Developmet

Rural community development encompasses a range of approaches and activities that aim to improve the welfare and livelihoods of people living in rural areas. As a branch of community development, these approaches pay attention to social issues particularly community organizing. This is in contrast to other forms of rural development that focus on public works (e.g. rural roads and electrification) and technology (e.g. tools and techniques for improving agricultural production).


Why GIS for Rural Development

GIS is a new technology, which can be adopted as a tool for analyzing and integrating the spatial and non spatial data in the community development projects. Public Participatory GIS can be integrated the local knowledge and Modern technology. This study derived from combining participation and GIS results and its powerful communication medium which bridge the gap between indigenous technical knowledge and scientific knowledge and there by increase the capacity of local stakeholders and policy makers to interact, locally, with external agencies and with central government of Sri Lanka.• Lack of spatial information in rural and regional level is one of the main problems for development practitioners and Government officials and local level planners. This project focus and develop longstanding development plan for everyone in the planning environment• Government authorities can use the spatial distribution of resources and its usage pattern as acquired by the participatory GIS Process for planning the tribal policy and deciding the place for the setting outsiders.


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