Disasters pose many challenges for Sri Lanka’s poor

Sri Lanka has reduced extreme poverty to below 1 per cent and poverty at the present national poverty line is now down to 4.1 per cent.
However the World Bank estimates that 5.7 per cent of the population is at risk of falling into poverty.

By taking lives, destroying assets and interrupting business activities, disasters are quite capable of adding measurably to the number of poor, said Dr. (Ms) Idah Pswarayi-Riddihough, World Bank Country Director for Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

She was speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2-day conference on ‘Adaptive Social Protection in Sri Lanka: Building Resilience to Disasters and Climate Change’ held on Tuesday at the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo.

She implied that if these achievements are not maintained, disasters would cause more poverty and commended the achievements, saying “Sri Lanka is the envy of many countries in its income and development bracket”. 

The key concerns for Sri Lanka are less about extreme poverty; and more about vulnerability to an array of risks. Depending on the level of vulnerability, progress can be undone, she pointed out and indicated that the key reason why this conference is focusing on one major risk that all living in Sri Lanka are aware of is – disaster risk.

She said that according to a World Bank report launched last week in Colombo, rising temperatures and changing monsoon rainfall patterns from climate change could cost Sri Lanka 7 per cent of GDP and depress the living standards of nearly half the country’s population by 2050. 

“While the government and development partners are now increasingly able to forecast disasters and provide immediate assistance to those affected, more can be done to coordinate these efforts and ensure that disaster-affected households are supported until they fully recover,” she said.

She said that is where adaptive social protection can play a role. Adaptive social protection comprises a series of measures to protect the poor and the vulnerable from disasters. These are measures to become more adaptive social protection and is not just about money but is about social assistance and services, such as cash transfers, social insurance, like pensions and disability benefits, she indicated.
With support from the World Bank, Sri Lanka is developing a social registry, which is a database containing details on the needs and conditions of citizens. 

A social registry, she said can help various programmes to determine who needs the most help in a systematic and objective way and it can play a key role in responding to disasters, too, by helping the government and other agencies to identify who is affected, what their needs are, and what programmes they already receive.  (QP)