Sri Lanka joined the FAO as a member nation in 1948 and a fully-fledged FAO Representation was established in January 1979 to cover Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Since then, FAO has financially and technically assisted the development of agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forestry and environmental sectors of the country.

Development work in Sri Lanka has strengthened regional capacity for land administration, rice production, bio-technology research, market oriented agricultural extension systems, cattle and buffalo breeding, and aquaculture development while emergency response has focused on resettlement of conflict displaced populations in the Northern and Eastern regions of the country, and previous tsunami recovery work.

One of the main achievements of FAO’s technical assistance activities has been the capacity development of thousands of technical officers of various Government departments in agriculture, fisheries, livestock, land and land development, forestry and environment sectors, through numerous training courses, workshops and seminars both within the country and abroad.

The comparative advantage of FAO will increasingly lie with the provision of technical expertise and capacity building to stakeholders within and outside the government structure. Through the sharing of technical expertise, knowledge and the provision of capacity building to stakeholders FAO’s cooperation will transition to more upstream support for Sri Lanka to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.