iLEAD International Academy Managing Director Ravi Pratap Singh, President Ranil Wickremesinghe, KL.LK CEO Santosh Menon and Senior Advisor to the President on Climate Change Ruwan Wijewardene.
Senior Advisor to the President on Climate Change, Ruwan Wijewardene along with Managing Director, iLEAD International Academy, Ravi Pratap Singh and CEO of FCB KL.LK, Santosh Menon, called on President Ranil Wickremesinghe to update him on the progress of an ambitious program to mobilise over 6,400 Green Entrepreneurs along the entire coastline of the island to restore and develop mangroves in the country.
Sri Lanka was recently selected as one of the seven UN World Restoration Flagships for its pioneering efforts to restore and expand the island’s mangrove cover by over 50 percent.
However, there is lot to be done in the last leg of this effort, which is always most challenging. One of the important aspects in the last leg is to ensure institutional mechanisms starting from the community level to the national level to sustain these efforts.
The program has been conceptualised and developed by Managing Director of iLEAD International Academy, Singh who has led the mobilisation of over 12,500 youth in Sri Lanka and around 2.5 lakhs of youth in the South Asia Region to develop them as entrepreneurs.
The program envisages galvanisation of all the forces inside and outside the country working towards mangrove restoration and youth empowerment.
Briefing President Wickremesinghe on this occasion, Ravi Pratap Singh said that the program would use scientific decision-making tools to appropriately define roles of three key stakeholders in this program – those working towards community mobilisation and action, the businesses in Sri Lanka, and the research/academic institutions. He told the President that this program would not only develop 6,400 young Green Entrepreneurs, but also directly support over 32,000 people and reach out to 10 million of the population of the country.
This initiative, Singh said, would generate a revenue of Rs 7,860 million (US$ 26 million) annually and add to the income of under-developed coastal regions of the country.
Wijewardene said a meeting of around 100 key stakeholders is due to be held this month to generate multiple action ideas, followed by a workshop titled Speaking a Common Language to be convened by CIFOR-ICRAF to synthesise the action ideas and develop a detailed action plan, involving all the stakeholders and then initiate work at the community level in selected five locations of the country starting from September 2024.
He also briefed the President about the commitment of Chamber of Young Lankan Entrepreneurs (COYLE) and CIFOR-ICRAF towards this program from the very beginning.
Singh said that Eden Project of the UK and M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation are also being mobilised to support this program by sharing their learnings and expertise on the subject of mangrove restoration.
Santosh Menon spoke about another project to build resilience in agriculture sector, which he is facilitating.
