Pri's blog

While one group of Colombo’s bold and beautiful gathered at the Lakshman Kadirigamar Institute for International  Relations and Strategic Studies to listen to a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair,  protected by riot squads of Police who looked like they would welcome some excitement after almost an year of inaction, another section of Colombo’s bold and beautiful met at the Balmoral Room of the Kingsbury Hotel to celebrate the life of an important Sri Lankan, Deshamanya Vidyajothi  Ray Wijewardene , and to present The Ray  Award for Innovation 2015.  Just before both those events, yet another group, this time a group of Colombo’s intellectuals were at the Institute of Ethnic Studies (ICES) listening to Kumari Jayawardene, Farzana Haniffa, Ahilan Kadirgamar and Vijay Nagaraj  with Harini Amarasuriya moderating,  reflect on the past ethnic and religious riots, the impact it had on the individual and the collective, and speak abo...

Here are what some would call 'irrational’  and possibly heretical  initial thoughts, after listening to President Sirisena’s interview on Rupavahini last night, and considering aspects of  the 100 day mini budget.     President Sirisena has called for a change in the ‘political culture’ of Sri Lanka. But unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be an equally strident call for a change in attitude about what constitutes well being for Sri Lankans, and what we need to do to ensure a more sustainable Sri Lanka.  For those of us working on sustainable development it is obvious that the current levels of consumption and the mantra of unbridled economic growth cannot continue in Sri Lanka (or in the world).   Ravi Karunanayaka’s ‘Robin Hood’  mini budget speech,  laudable because it is catering for the lower income citizens  of Sri Lanka, has a disturbing statement  “ in order to encourage low income families to purcha...

I have been having a conversation with Jamie Enoch, Research and Policy Analyst at the UKCDS, on a study that the UKCDS did for DFID on Mapping Infrastructure Research for Development .  You can read the exchange of words  on the Linked In AFCAP (African Community Access Programme) group if you are a registered member of Linked In, and are inclined to join the group. .  Much of it is show casing the work of the International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD) , which, though supported by DFID for several years, received no mention in the report’s chapter on transport.   Despite this omission, it is good to know that another analyst, e.g. Steven Jones, an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama, working with AFCAP on identifying " rural transport issues in Sub-Saharn Africa (SSA) to be targeted for future research... aimed at developing a more comprehensive understanding of the overall health impacts (crashes, polllution. healthca...

As the discussion on a new set of post-2015 development goals  gathers momentum, I wonder how far the transport sector has got to framing a discussion on transport development in the post-2015 development agenda.  The sector was slow in getting transport-related targets into the MDG conversation, so let’s hope there is greater energy getting mobility and access issues on to the agenda this time round. As far as the discussions on the post-2015 development goals go, they seem to be moving towards integrating the need for sustainable development goals (SDGs) mooted in the discourse following the Rio+20 summit, and the next round of millennium development goals (MDGs).   If transport is to feed into this discussion, then I believe that we may need to go back to the fundamentals. Transport is about access and mobility and is a means to an end, whether that end is increasing economic growth or improving peoples’ access to services. In the current post-2015 disc...

I was spared the video because I don't watch television. Here it is from the Daily Mirror Website. Check it out here My September 26 vignette was about war. But this one is about something happening in peace time, in Bambalapitiya, in the heart of residential and commercial Colombo. The man who was bludgeoned to death was deranged and as such violent to those around him - but do our forces not have any training to overpower him without killing him? and what about all those people, civilians like you and me, who stood around watching this happen? Is this our post-conflict collective conscience?

Some of the outcomes of a panel discussion on the subject that I facilitated at the Asian Transport Forum at the Asian Development Bank in Manila on the 11th September, interspersed with some thoughts of my own... What is inclusive transport? The World Bank discusses the issues relating to inclusive transport as " the availability of transport services for the poor, women, persons with disability and the elderly has emerged as an important issue in the context of a number of transport policies. It requires the removal of institutional and physical barriers and the enhancement of incentives to increase the accessibility of diverse individuals and groups to transport opportunities" (see : http://go.worldbank.org/61NANCE7X0) The ADB looks at the need to pay special attention to mobility and accessibility especially of low-income households as differentiated by their gender, age and ability. They aim to ensure equitable and affordable transport and ensure access to the ...