Grantee: Centre for a Smart Future (CSF)
Partner organizations: N/A
Country of focus: Sri Lanka
Grant period: November 2025 – April 2027
FutureWORKS Asia is part of a global initiative supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada, aimed at addressing the evolving challenges in the world of work across the Global South. As the Asian arm of the broader FutureWORKS network, the initiative is led by LIRNEasia and focuses on supporting high-quality, innovative, and gender-responsive research to inform skills development and policy pathways for an inclusive and sustainable future of work in Asia.
Following the completion of the first competitive selection process, five research projects under Cycle 1 are currently ongoing. In November 2025, FutureWORKS Asia onboarded seven additional research projects under Cycle 2, expanding the regional research network. These Cycle 2 projects will run until April 2027, deepening evidence and policy engagement across diverse future-of-work themes, including climate transitions, gender, and labour market transformation.
CSF has been selected to conduct a 18 month research and advocacy project, Climate Change and the Future of Work in Sri Lankan Cities.
Cities across Sri Lanka are becoming hotter, with rising temperatures and declining air quality increasingly shaping how work is performed—particularly for outdoor and informal workers. This project examines the economic, health, and gendered impacts of extreme heat on outdoor workers in Colombo and its suburbs, with a focus on gig workers and street cleaners who perform essential services yet lack adequate social protection.
By documenting lived experiences and mapping how heat stress affects daily work, income stability, health, and care responsibilities, the project aims to generate evidence that supports transformative social protection, urban adaptation strategies, and climate-responsive labour policies. The research is paired with targeted advocacy to engage municipalities, platform companies, private sector actors, and the public in building more climate-resilient and inclusive cities.
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Research objectives
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The project seeks to:
- Examine the economic, health, and gendered impacts of heat stress on outdoor workers in Colombo and surrounding urban areas.
- Document the lived experiences and coping strategies of gig workers and street cleaners facing rising temperatures and deteriorating air quality.
- Identify gaps in existing social protection systems and assess their accessibility for outdoor and informal workers.
- Generate evidence to support multi-stakeholder advocacy, including pathways for municipalities, platform companies, private sector actors, and civil society to improve working conditions and climate resilience.
- Key research questions explore how heat stress is experienced across different groups, the adequacy of existing policy and infrastructural responses, and what public–private partnerships can support dignified, safe, and sustainable outdoor work.
The project adopts a solutions-oriented, mixed-methods approach, combining primary qualitative research, digital ethnography, and spatial mapping.
The research will begin by consolidating and updating CSF’s existing body of work (since 2021) on informality, the gig economy, social protection, and climate change. This includes updating literature reviews and mapping key stakeholders in the urban policy landscape. The review will be expanded to include policy responses and practical solutions from other cities, drawing on government initiatives, private sector actions, community-led responses, and platform company practices related to heat stress, outdoor work, and gig labour.
Research activities include semi-structured interviews with 150 outdoor workers, comprising gig workers on ride-hailing and delivery platforms and formally employed street cleaners across Colombo and selected suburbs. These interviews are complemented by digital ethnography of online gig worker communities during periods of extreme heat, and GIS-based mapping of public infrastructure such as shade, water access, sanitation, and urban heat exposure.
Findings will be validated with workers and stakeholders, and used to co-develop policy recommendations, infrastructural solutions, and advocacy pathways through workshops and targeted engagements.
The Centre for a Smart Future (CSF) is an interdisciplinary, solutions-oriented public policy think tank based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. CSF’s research work and researchers’ insights have been sought by successive national governments, line agencies, Parliamentary committees, multilateral and bilateral development partners and international aid organisations, and the private sector. Relevant to this FutureWorks call is the previous work undertaken for the International Labour Organization (ILO), where CSF researchers studied the emergence of platform-based gig work in Sri Lanka, and its changes during COVID-19 and the economic crisis. CSF researchers coordinated the country studies for India and Bangladesh, and co-authored a regional synthesis report as well as a briefing report for employer and business member organisations in the region.
- Iromi Perera (Principal Investigator):
Expert in urbanisation and cities, social protection, economic and climate justice
- Anushka Wijesinha (Co-Investigator):
Expert in economy, climate, trade
- Meghal Perera (Research Associate):
Expert in urbanisation and cities
- Stephanie Nicolle (Research Associate):
Expert in Inclusive technology and innovation
- Medhini Igoor (Researcher):
Nature, climate, economy, architecture
This project is one of the twelve projects selected under the FutureWORKS Asia, a research initiative funded by IDRC and led by LIRNEasia, a pro-poor, pro-market think tank specializing in digital infrastructure and policy research. LIRNEasia’s work focuses on leveraging digital technology to enhance knowledge, information access, and economic opportunities, particularly for underserved communities.
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