To mitigate, develop, and improve the lives of those vulnerable to intense natural disasters, climate change, and food insecurity, many agencies are funding and implementing diverse activities from reconstruction to rehabilitation. In particular, mid- to long-term interventions, strategies, and practical approaches are being designed and adopted to build the resilience of the poor.

Health minister Maithripala Sirisena said all local government bodies would be dissolved by mid-January, about two weeks before they complete their terms, and fresh elections would be called by mid-March.

"The local bodies will be dissolved by the middle of this month and we will have earlier elections," said Sirisena, who is also the general secretary of the ruling party.

In developing countries where access to and use of renewable natural resources essential to rural livelihoods are highly contested, improving cooperation in their management is increasingly seen as an important element in strategies for peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and longer-term social-ecological resilience. While researchers have made important advances in recent years in assessing the role of environmental resources as a causal factor in civil conflict, analysis of the positive potential of collective natural resource management efforts to reduce broader

Can you get used to living with war? Probably, in the same way that you can somehow get used to living with physical pain, with constant stress, with disturbing noises. You get used to it, you bear with it in silence, because you have no other choice. You don't know of any alternative.

One thing is for sure: the surrounding world can "get used" to protracted conflict. The international community, the media, the aid organisations - they can all turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to suffering that does not have any news value. Protracted

GICHD POLICY BRIEF | DECEMBER 2010

KEY MESSAGES

• Land and property are often central issues in the build up to conflict, in the strategies pursued by combatants and in post-conflict recovery

• Mine action organisations are not neutral when it comes to land rights. Releasing land which was previously contaminated with landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) and making it accessible changes its status. This inevitably involves land rights issues, even if the intent is to avoid them.

Overview

The government said in a statement the U.N. panel can only testify before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), a state-created body that human rights groups say lacks the credibility, and impartiality, needed to look into alleged human rights violations by the military against Tamil Tiger rebels, especially in the

HIV prevalence in Sri Lanka is relatively low: The latest government figures (December 2009) indicated 1,196 cases - less than 0.1 percent of people aged 15-49, and less than 1 percent of those in high-risk groups.

However, accurate assessment of HIV prevalence is difficult as social stigma and lack of knowledge make HIV prevention and information campaigns difficult. UNAIDS estimates the total number

"The racketeers lure refugees with promises to help them migrate to Australia on illegal ferryboats. We have placed signboards in front of all refugee camps, asking them to alert us about such racketeers. But most of them approach us only after they are conned," a senior Q' branch officer said.

In the past five years, Q' branch personnel have arrested at least 50 job racketeers, who cheated Sri Lankan refugees