Photo courtesy of Roar Media
Sri Lanka’s poverty rate has more than doubled over the past four years from 11 percent in 2019 to almost 26 percent in 2023. This means that more than a quarter of the population is living in poverty. One third of households are facing food insecuritywith 11 million people being considered as multidimensionally vulnerable. Women and children suffer the most because their access to nutrition is increasingly limited. Underweight rates show an increase among children and expectant mothers. The poverty rate, measured at $3.65 per person per day, is expected to decline gradually but remain above 20 percent until 2026.
The national average of the Official Poverty Line (OPL) was Rs.13,777 in 2022. By January 2024, it increased to Rs.17,014, indicating that a family of four needed Rs.68,056 each month to live. The OPL represents an absolute threshold designed to ensure a person can meet a minimum nutritional intake of 2,030 calories per day.
Households are grappling with high prices, income losses and under employment. This has led to families getting into debt to meet food requirements and maintain spending on health and education, according to a recent World Bank report.
The report said, “Households have been impoverished by a fall in their purchasing power due to high inflation, losses in wages, income and employment, and a drop in remittances.”
According to the 2024 Global Hunger Index (GHI), the country ranks 56th out of 127 countries with a score of 11.3, reflecting a moderate level of hunger. A survey conducted by the Family Health Bureau in 2022 revealed that 43.4 percent of children face some form of nutritional issue including growth faltering, being underweight, wasting, stunting, overweight and obesity.
Despite being elected on a mandate to ease the economic woes of the poorest of the poor, the 2025 Budget did not make social protection a priority for the most vulnerable. The amount allocated for cash transfers to low income families under the Aswesuma programme is Rs. 160.1 billion, which amounts to 0.5 percent of GDP. Aswesuma is the only government programme offering relief to low income families, the elderly, persons living with disabilities and kidney patients.
“The recent thrust on increasing Government revenues has meant that working people have paid a higher share of the increases through indirect taxes on goods and services, even as they were forced to contend with inadequate food, medicines and education for their families. While more than half of the public revenue is generated through indirect taxes, only 4.7% of the total Budget revenue is allocated to be distributed back to the families who have helped raise them through Aswesuma. Far from fair redistribution, this approach signals a cruel transfer of the burden of the crisis onto those already poor,” wrote Niyanthini Kadirgamar.
“To effectively address poverty and malnutrition, Sri Lanka requires a comprehensive approach. Strengthening welfare programmes, modernising agriculture, improving healthcare access and fostering political stability are essential. Targeted efforts to improve maternal and child nutrition, along with investments in education, can help reduce malnutrition rates. A collaborative effort involving the government, civil society and international partners is crucial to create a more equitable and healthier future for all Sri Lankans,” wrote Professor Wasantha Athukorala.
As the final interview of its series on Assessing the Key Issues Facing the NPP Government, Groundviews spoke to Iromi Perera, Co-founder and Director of the Centre for a Smart Future, on how best to address Sri Lanka’s crisis of poverty.
What should the government be doing to assist the most financially vulnerable?
These are questions that should have been asked and looked at from 2020 onwards. But unfortunately, we didn’t see that this was the case. The kind of support and the rollout of various policies since 2020 targeting COVID lockdowns and economic crisis were quite ad hoc and based on assumptions of what vulnerability looked like or what needs were like without actually trying to understand the situation on the ground or that needs differ based on geography, livelihood and different circumstances. The best thing the government can do to assist communities in need is to look at a more universal approach to social protection without continuously trying to go for targeted programmes and not assuming that poverty and vulnerability looks a particular way but understanding that it is multi-dimensional; it can differ from month to month and from street to street. A one size fits all approach will definitely not work. This is something the NPP government should be considering very seriously, that the approach that we have had to social protection all this time is hugely inadequate. The other thing they need to be taking seriously is the National Social Protection Policy that was passed last year and the accompanying strategy. There’s been very little information or disclosure about it and it feels like, whether it’s being revised or what the status is. More clarity, better consultations and a more open process about what the next steps are would be the ideal way to go forward without continuing the same problematic ways of working. Because it has a two thirds majority, the government has a real opportunity to transform social protection without constantly going down the same route of cash transfers or random projects that different institutions start. It’s also an opportunity to get the support of development partners who are here to support the government. So it would be a truly wasted opportunity if it didn’t think about how to shift Sri Lanka’s social protection strategy and approach into a more transformative strategy instead of going down the same economic transformation route.
How are the Aswesuma beneficiaries selected and how can this method be improved?
The Aswesuma methodology for selection of beneficiaries was developed in 2019 by the Department of Census and Statistics. The methodology for selection was thought of in a world that was pre-COVID and pre-economic crisis. This methodology uses 22 indicators to define or understand various vulnerabilities such as a permanent house, what cooking fuel they use, whether they use a gas cylinder or not, whether they have an indoor bathroom, level of education, what assets they have and whether they have formal water and electricity connections. They are ranked across these 22 indicators and if you have something, you get one point. If you don’t have it, you get zero. Based on how much you score and what the cutoff is for your district, you may or may not be entitled for Aswasuma. The methodology is problematic on a few levels. One being that the indicators were thought of pre-COVID and pre-economic crisis. The other issue is that it imagines poverty to look a certain way, that people who need these cash transfers are people who don’t have a proper house, who is not very well educated, who are not connected to the grid and who don’t have assets. But in reality the economic crisis and COVID lockdowns decimated working class communities and lower middle class communities. Having assets doesn’t mean that you are not in need of support. So it essentially penalises you for having worked hard and accumulated assets, invested in these assets and homes.
Which institutional reforms are necessary for effective social protection?
Last year, the National Social Protection Policy was passed and the strategy to accompany this policy is being put together. While the policy that was passed last year goes a lot further than other social protection strategies or policies that we’ve had before, it’s still quite inadequate because it’s still looking at economic transformation alone but not really looking at social protection holistically. It’s not looking at making social protection universal and focused on economic transformation. It’s not looking at a more transformative social protection strategy, which actually can look very different and have different types of mechanisms. It could be beyond economic, for example, economic would be cash transfers and insurance plans, whereas something more transformative would consider social inequity altogether and look at things like wage bills, domestic worker protection and climate related protection as well as universal school meal programmes, elderly benefits and child benefits. So looking at social protection more like a constellation of support instead of assuming that economic transformation alone or economic support alone is adequate to give people protection during crises.
How should community voices be incorporated into policy making processes?
Right now community voices don’t factor in at all. A lot of the policies and policy making and decision making are based on assumptions on what communities look like, what their vulnerabilities are – it’s not research or data driven at all. It’s based on a lot of almost moralistic assumptions and societal assumptions about people in need and is that we see filtering into a policy process. What would be ideal is if policy makers and decision makers would actually look at the lived realities of communities, interact with them and have proper mechanisms to get their feedback, which should be a systematic bottom-up approach mechanism to elicit proper feedback. When we do talk to communities, they have lots of recommendations and ideas that they would like to be supported. Cash is important but communities also have a lot of input and ideas because they’re the people who are the beneficiaries but they’re the people who are also in need of safety nets. A proper, meaningful feedback mechanism would definitely lead to stronger social protection.
What difficulties do communities have in sharing their needs during policy making?
By the time they find out about certain policies, they have already been approved or passed or being implemented. The people never find out about policies that affect them when it’s at a design stage or even at a consultation stage. Even when there are consultations, it’s very rarely that communities find out about it because consultations are with experts and communities aren’t considered to be experts by policymakers. When they do try to impact policy, there are so many different barriers including technical knowledge or even knowing where to go or who to speak to. The fact that they don’t always speak the technical language is also a barrier. I don’t think people need to speak that technical language at all. That is the part of the policymaker or the person who is drafting it. But the biggest issue is just on access and information disclosure. Even if you file a right to information request, usually there is little information that comes because we have the same problem, leave alone the communities, accessing information from government departments. The strategy seems to be to play the waiting game. The longer you delay, the longer people will not be able to follow up or follow through.
