Protecting the Poor is an Urgent Necessity
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…
Poverty
Reforming Welfare from Dependency to Reciprocal Dignity
Sri Lanka stands at a pivotal moment in its social development. After weathering a profound economic crisis and decades of welfare policies that have created complex patterns of dependency, the nation must…
Sri Lanka’s Income Gap Seen as a Major Problem
Unicef Polling by the Institute for Health Policy’s (IHP) Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) reveals that 75% of Sri Lankans believe the income gap between the rich and poor is a…
Lingering Crises: Poverty and Malnutrition in the Aftermath of Sri Lanka’s Economic Crisis
Seetha is an elderly woman who takes care of her three grandchildren, all below the age of 15. She lives in a section of her late daughter’s house, where the electricity has…
Poverty and Malnutrition in Sri Lanka: An Overview
Today is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty Poverty and malnutrition are interconnected issues that continue to affect millions worldwide and Sri Lanka is no exception. In recent years, global poverty…
Economy, Inflation and Unemployment: Most Pressing National Issues
Sri Lankans overwhelmingly cite the economy and inflation as their biggest concerns going into the September presidential election in the latest Institute for Health Policy (IHP) Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS)…
Focus on Inequality
Sri Lankans will participate in another presidential election before the end of this year. This election will be held after the country has faced what was probably the worst economic crisis in…
The Crisis Is Far From Over For Colombo’s Poor
The long lines at fuel stations have disappeared as have the frequent power outages; it’s almost as if the economic crisis is a thing of the past. For Colombo’s working class poor…
Some Thoughts on Inequality
This article was prompted by a question I came across during some recent discussions. Does inequality matter? My immediate reaction was to point out that all types of social oppression such as…
Aswesuma: High Exclusion, Low Transparency?
The Welfare Benefits Board (WBB) called for applications last year for people to be included in the new registry that will bring all the current benefits schemes under one platform names Aswesuma….
A Governance Diagnostic by the Sri Lankan Public
As the IMF has noted in its Governance Diagnostic Assessment in September, “The resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in July 2022 emphasized that addressing the crisis required changes in governance as much…
IMF: Strengthening the Social Safety Net is Critical
The IMF has reached a staff-level agreement after conducting the first review of Sri Lanka’s extended fund facility arrangement. The release of the second tranche of the facility now awaits a decision…
What Can We Learn from Sri Lanka’s Debt Default?
At Independence in 1948, Sri Lanka was second to Japan on most socio-economic indicators and ahead of South Korea on per capita income in 1960; it has since slipped behind most Asian…
Debt Restructuring, Austerity and the IMF: a Panacea or an Exacerbation? Part 6
The IMF programme needs to be used to negotiate debt restructuring with commercial and multilateral creditors. It would create space to spend on priorities such as food and fuel. However, the country…
A Strategy to Address Child Abandonment
Child abandonment, a distressing issue with far reaching consequences, has reached alarming proportions in Sri Lanka. Within this year, ECPAT Sri Lanka’s media monitoring team has recorded 10 incidents of child abandonment…
