Rohan Samarajiva, Tharaka Amarasinghe, and I attended a meeting with the Committee on Comprehensive Social Protection for Workers on 4 January 2024, following an invitation from the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment in Sri Lanka. Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment, Manusha Nanayakkara was present at the meeting, along with representatives from several agencies including the National Planning Department, Social Security Board, Employers’ Federation of Ceylon, and International Labour Organisation. During the session, we delivered a presentation to the Committee, accessible here. This article sheds light on three key points we raised, initiating meaningful discussions. 28% of workers are living in poverty LIRNEasia’s 10,000 sample nationally representative survey conducted between August 2022 and March 2023 highlighted that 28% of the 8. 
Rohan Samarajiva, Tharaka Amarasinghe, and I attended a meeting with the Committee on Comprehensive Social Protection for Workers on 4 January 2024, following an invitation from the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment in Sri Lanka. Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment, Manusha Nanayakkara was present at the meeting, along with representatives from several agencies including the National Planning Department, Social Security Board, Employers’ Federation of Ceylon, and International Labour Organisation. During the session, we delivered a presentation to the Committee, accessible here. This article sheds light on three key points we raised, initiating meaningful discussions. 28% of workers are living in poverty LIRNEasia’s 10,000 sample nationally representative survey conducted between August 2022 and March 2023 highlighted that 28% of the 8. 
LIRNEasia’s Senior Research Manager, Gayani Hurulle, recently spoke at a symposium organised by the Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) titled “Poverty Alleviation in an Era of Economic Crisis.” The symposium, held in November last year, aimed at revisiting poverty-related issues, focusing on addressing the escalating poverty and vulnerability in the present crisis and beyond. Gayani, heading LIRNEasia’s work on poverty and social safety nets in Sri Lanka participated as a discussant in a panel on building a comprehensive social protection system. The panel, moderated by Karin Fernando from CEPA, included experts such as Shalika Subasinghe of the World Bank, Mira Bierbaum of the UNICEF, and Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne of Sarvodaya. 
LIRNEasia’s Senior Research Manager, Gayani Hurulle, has been featured in a recent documentary by Channel News Asia, delving into the dynamics of Sri Lanka’s debt crisis. The documentary seeks to explain the debt crisis, whilst exploring the human cost associated with a country grappling with economic challenges, and looking forward as to what happens next. In the documentary, Gayani shares findings from LIRNEasia’s recent research on poverty and social safety nets in Sri Lanka. Our nationally representative research adds a crucial layer to the understanding of the complexities surrounding the country’s economic challenges. Watch the full documentary Read our research on social safety nets and poverty rates in Sri Lanka 
Authored by a former research intern at LIRNEasia Ali Hakim, this research article delves into the strategic linkages between social information systems and livelihood-related databases, shedding light on innovative approaches to enhance the efficiency of welfare structures. This article explores the dynamic intersection of social registries and labour programmes in Chile, the Philippines, and Sierra Leone. Ali, in his article has highlighted the successes in these countries but also underlines the potential blueprint these systems provide for other nations seeking to refine their information structures and optimise safety net targeting. This research was conducted as a part of LIRNEasia’s social safety nets, to understand the state of social safety nets in the country and make recommendations for their reform, in the wake of the 2022 economic crisis. Read the full article.
Poverty alleviation is the first of the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. However, the three decades of progress in poverty alleviation hit the COVID-19 pandemic wall (World Bank, 2022). This was further exacerbated by longstanding macroeconomic mismanagement in countries such as Sri Lanka. Counting the poor is the first step in poverty alleviation (The Economist, 2023). Deaton (2016), for example, notes that recording details of how people live, their consumption patterns, and their expenditure has long served as a tool, sometimes a political one, that aimed to bring the living conditions of the impoverished to the attention of those in authority, to evoke shock, and to advocate for reform.
By employing unsupervised and supervised machine learning techniques, we explore the feasibility of utilizing mobile call detail records (CDRs) as well as geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) data to map poverty spatially
Draft: Open for Comments Social protection is a critical tool for promoting economic and social inclusion, reducing inequality and poverty, addressing vulnerabilities, and investing in human development. Social protection is viewed as nationally owned policies and instruments that provide income or in-kind support, protect from deprivations and exclusion, and empower individuals and households by increasing productivity and capabilities. Responsive and accountable governance plays a vital role in removing barriers and ensuring effective checks and balances, enabling citizens to fully benefit from social protection (UNDP, 2022). The objective of this research is to understand the challenges to achieving responsive and accountable governance in social protection, which hinder citizens from fully benefiting from social protection in Sri Lanka. This paper will draw on one of the key thematic areas identified in UNDP’s Social Protection Offer 2.
LIRNEasia held an event titled Social Safety Nets and the State of Poverty in Sri Lanka on Wednesday 7 June 2023 in Colombo. This event involved a presentation of the findings of a recent nationally representative survey of 10,000 Sri Lankan households conducted by LIRNEasia, followed by a panel discussion, with representation of stakeholders from government, multi-lateral donor organizations, and civil society. 
In our blogpost with Citra Labs, we explore the role digital and data can play in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of social safety nets (social assistance) in Sri Lanka.
සමෘද්ධි දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ අධ්යක්ෂ ජනරාල්වරයා විසින් 2022 අගෝස්තු 29 වැනි දින නිකුත් කරන ලද චක්රලේඛය අනුව, ජ්යෙෂ්ඨ පුරවැසියන්, ආබාධිත පුද්ගලයන් (PWDs) සහ වකුගඩු රෝගීන් සඳහා මාසික මුදල් ආධාර ලබාදීම් 2022 සැප්තැම්බර් මාසයේ සිට සමෘද්ධි බැංකු හරහා කළ යුතුය. ප්රායෝගිකව මෙම පරිපාලනය ආරම්භ වීමට නියමිත වන්නේ ඔක්තෝබර් මාසයේ සිටයි.
(Note: This was originally published in the Daily FT) The Director General of the Department of Samurdhi released a circular on 29 August stating that monthly cash transfers to senior citizens, persons with disabilities (PWDs), and kidney patients must be administered through Samurdhi banks from September 2022. In practice, this will occur from October. This disbursement mechanism deviates significantly from that used earlier, where each of these schemes had different collection points. Samurdhi banks were used exclusively as distribution points for the Samurdhi monthly cash transfers. Senior citizens’ allowances, PWD benefits and kidney patients’ allowances were disbursed via post offices, State banks and divisional secretariats, respectively (Table 1). 
The fragmented social protection system in Sri Lanka has been in need of reform for many years. There is a need to reform many areas, including targeting and the delivery of benefits — areas we have, and continue to, stress the importance of. The specific reforms that we prioritise may differ in the short and long term. The current economic crisis (which has thrown millions into poverty) has highlighted the gaps in the system. In this light, ensuring that the cash transfers are adequate to meet the needs of individuals and all those who need assistance are covered by the programme are key. 
I was invited to speak on Social Safety Nets in Sri Lanka on ‘The People’s Platform’ a 45 minute live TV programme on NewsFirst. I drew on LIRNEasia’s research on the area to highlight problems in targeting the poor and the possibility of using bank accounts and mobile technology to deliver benefits to the poor.
Slides presented at the Advocata Institute’s #ReformNow conference on 5 August 2022
Gayani Hurulle discussed LIRNEasia's research on social safety nets in Sri Lanka on an 'AdvoChat' organized by the Advocata Institute.
LIRNEasia CEO Helani Galapaya and Chair Rohan Samarajiva participated in an online webinar on Social Safety Nets on 8 May 2022. Former Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Finance, A. R. Deshapriya was also on this panel organised by the National Movement of Social Justice, and moderated by Harindra B. Dissanayake.