In the context of a post-war rehabilitation, strengthening the livelihood and employment opportunities in the resettlement areas is very vital. With the contextual changes, the refugee returnees and the displaced communities were beginning to resettle in their native villages. At this situation, with the understanding that right to livelihood is an imperative to a returned or a resettled refugee or an IDP family, OfERR (Ceylon) has given maximum emphasis to the sustainable livelihood programme. The other reason is that the sustainable livelihoods, while giving the individual a regular income, will also contribute for the local economic development. In this effort, the livelihood sector was considered as one of the primary areas of recovery and among the resettled households, livelihood has been considered as one of the most important needs that to be immediately catered. Thus, OfERR’s intervention aims at providing support for sector-based livelihood assistance for returned/resettled communities who engaged and willingness to engage in agriculture, fisheries and livestock related sectors and enterprise development support, especially for youth through inputs, equipment and accessories with required skills.

There were overall 263635 beneficiaries assisted with the provision of livelihood such as fishery, agriculture, animal husbandry and micro-enterprises.

As a result of the livelihood support, the families were asserted their right to earn with the provision of livelihood, after reintegration in their native places where there is a lacking of livelihood and employment opportunities. With this, they were capacitated to engage in sustainable livelihood measures to accomplish day today livelihood needs of the families. From the monitoring of livelihood beneficiaries that were undertaken with the external experts it was learnt that from the needs assessment to the point of evaluation there was a continuous connectivity with the beneficiaries; and the success rate of over 90 per cent among the monitored beneficiaries was quite evident from the field visits. Particularly, among the returnees, the livelihoods restored their sense of hope and dignity and made them be self-reliant to cope up with the economic challenges that are experienced in the preliminary period of reintegration.

The returnees, on arrival, may face problems with the livelihood that can support their daily survival. Absence of adequate livelihood opportunities in Sri Lanka adversely affects sustenance and broader protection of returnees. This communicates a bad message to the refugees living in India, who cites stories of such difficulties as one of the key reasons for postponing their return to Sri Lanka and, in some cases, considering options for travel to other countries.The returnees may need support with the expertise and aids for several livelihood schemes including agriculture, fishing, poultry/animal husbandry, carpentry, painting, masonry, etc. In this period, OfERR Ceylon supported 695 families.