Pri's blog

Last week the world’s governments adopted a new sustainable development agenda , and moved towards new ways of ‘doing development’ that if implemented,  will result in new partnerships between the global north and the global south, between private corporations, national governments and  international institutions, and between citizens and the state.   In Sri Lanka, the year 2015 saw us embark on a new phase of governance that aims to combat political patronage and corruption, emphasise accountability, and safeguard the rights of the people and respect their right to information and to equal treatment by the state.   The new regime that Sri Lankan citizens have elected into the legislature (supported also by a newly elected President) inherits a post-war society that has an average GDP growth of around 6-7%, a lower middle income status, dramatic reductions in poverty head count ratios, and a record of most MDGs achieved.  But it is also a socie...

  I have just seen RED.   Not because it is the auspicious colour for the New Year, but because I have just read in the Island of 11 th April the seventieth Pathfinder Economic Flash entitled Colombo Port City: Monster or transformative opportunity.   There has been a lot written about how transformative the project promises to be – not just of the Sri Lankan economy, but also of the environment in which we Sri Lankans live.   Some consider the transformation monstrous, others an opportunity! I had gone to the Pathfinder article with a view to finding some evidence for the latter view; for learning about the ‘potential benefits of a massive integrated development project of this nature’, especially the benefits of the marina and yacht club, the seaview apartments, the five star hotel, the mini golf course, the shopping and entertainment centre and the ‘many other modern facilities’.   IMHO, the benefit from projects such as the Colombo Port City Projec...

One of the most productive outcomes of my visit to Istanbul was the time spent in reading and reviewing four papers that were presented at the  session on ‘Varying perspectives on the global development agenda’ at the Southern Voice Global Conference that preceded the TTI 2015 Exchange . The papers were: Ibrahima  Hathie’s  ( IPAR, Senegal ) The post-2015 Development Agenda – favourable for Africans? Mireya Villacis’ ( CEDA, Ecuador ) Alternatives for or to Development Ajaya Dixit’s ( ISET-N, Nepal ) The Changing intersection of society and development goals: an examination aimed at improving policy Bitrina Diyamett’s ( STIPRO, Tanzania )    Is the current booming growth in Africa worth celebrating?  Some evidence from Tanzania The papers produced some clear messages that cut across the geographical divide of three continents.  They emphasised the need for inclusive growth, recognising that economic growth in itself is not enough, th...

This may be a strange thing to say after the recent devastating landslide in the Meeriyabedde Tea Plantation  in Koslanda that occupied our thoughts in the last couple of weeks, but there is no such thing as a ‘natural’ disaster.  What we have are natural hazards.    The disaster that follows a natural hazard, whether it is a tsunami,  earthquake, flood, drought, cyclone or landslide depends on  how much impact the hazard has on  people, assets and the environment.   The numbers of people and assets that are damaged by the  occurrence of the natural hazard turns the event into a disaster.  The  damage  of course is largely dependent on the choices we make about how we use our land, how we build our buildings, what kind of government we have, and how our financial system works. Disaster risk is seen as the frequency and severity of the hazard, the numbers of people and assets exposed to the hazard and ...