Pri's blog

The Human Development Report 2014 is entitled Sustaining human progress: Reducing vulnerabilities and Building Resilience, and if nothing else has foregrounded two of the key concepts in the current development discourse i.e. vulnerability and resilience. The concept of vulnerability In discussing vulnerability, the HDR aims to move beyond the traditional concept of vulnerability that comes from the disaster risk reduction discourse and  which is about exposure to risk and risk management including insuring against shocks and diversifying assets and incomes,    to what it calls ‘human vulnerability’ which is the prospects of eroding peoples’ capabilities and choices.  This definition can be linked to the idea of peoples’ agency, and also to Sen’s idea of entitlement  and serve to broaden the policy debate .   But unfortunately, at the outset itself the HDR then reduces human vulnerability to a categorisation of ‘who’ is vulnerable, ‘what’ th...

I think I am fast becoming the UNDP's MDG favourite! Was asked to talk this time at the launch of the "Gender Dimensions of the Millennium Development Goals in Sri Lanka" publication, researched and written by CENWOR (Centre for Women's Research). The other speakers were Anila Dias Bandaranaike and Pat Alailima. Unfortunately the only man invited to the head table to speak, Dr D S Jayaweera, Head of the National Council for Economic Development (NCED) was called away to attend to more important things, so there was a bunch of females talking to a largely female audience, who true to form raised some interesting questions - watch this space for what I said! While you are waiting, did anyone tell you the story about the multilateral agency that has its senior officers checking the minutae details of consulting firms' expense claims to the level of asking the firm to explain why they served 30 sandwiches at a workshop where there were only seven participants? The ...

I expect all of you know what the MDGs are: the Millennium Development Goals, signed up to by donor and developing countries alike, as targets for alleviating poverty in the world. For more information go to: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ This blog is to share with you a presentation I made about these goals and taking them forward, at the launch of the mid-term MDG review publication for the Asia region at the UNDP Regional Centre in Colombo. I had been rather hesitant in accepting the invitation because I have always been rather uncomfortable with the MDGs. But I decided to take the bull by the horns and start by explaining why I am saying I am uncomfortable with the MDGs. This in no way denies the fact that the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs served to focus the world’s attention on poverty, and on issues like hunger, infant mortality, education etc. There are many reasons for my discomfort, and several of them have implications for what I would like to see as the way forwa...