Regina Mayor Pat Fiacco is about to be a man on a mission. He will be in Sri Lanka next week as part of a Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) monitoring mission to observe projects that are underway to rebuild areas of that country hardest hit by the 2004 tsunami that ripped through southeast Asia.

Fiacco and the rest of the team, composed of representatives from various Canadian municipalities, will spend two weeks visiting three key locations still in the process of rebuilding: Galle, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee. The trip is to start Tuesday.

"After the tsunami in 2004 the FCM and CIDA partnered to provide relief, either financially or through expertise in basic infrastructure," Fiacco said Friday.

Municipal officials from all over Canada have worked with their Sri Lankan counterparts in restoring and improving services like waste management, surface water drainage, and municipal financing and planning.

The partnership, called the Canadian/Sri Lanka Municipal Co-operation Program (MCP), was organized to help in rebuilding efforts, and includes a $2.2-million Municipal Strategy Fund paid for by CIDA and managed by FCM.

In 2006 Regina's general manager of sewer water and waste management visited Trincomalee, a city of 3.5 million on Sri Lanka's northeast coast, to observe the work being done and to provide input on improving that city's solid waste management.

"There should be significant progress that was made. You can imagine that in some cases the entire road systems had to be redone," said Fiacco, who will be making his first trip to the tsunami-stricken country.

He adds there is much more work to be done. He used the example of a library built in one of the communities that doesn't have any books.

The team of representatives from FCM will meet with local authorities and Sri Lankan government officials to check on the development of the MCP so far, report back to the FCM on the progress made and provide recommendations for future plans.

"This is an exciting opportunity for Canada, specifically for Regina. It's fantastic that we were able to send one of our (city) employees, and send our expertise over there. It bodes well for Regina as far as being involved in parts of the world that we sometimes forget about," Fiacco said excitedly.

Both FCM and CIDA have done extensive work in other parts of the region ravaged by the massive tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands. They have a similar partnership with the government of the Indonesian province of Aceh.

The partnership, known as the Canada/Aceh Local Governance Program (CALGAP), has helped with reconstruction efforts in the province, and to help in the creation of stable municipal governments that are currently lacking in that country.

"A lot of those places really have a central government, there is no local government. It's a perfect opportunity for Canada, which is a leader when it comes to municipal government to be involved," said Fiacco.

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