News: economic development

The last two months in Sri Lanka have seen increasing international pressure coupled with domestic struggles against Mahinda Rajapakse’s government. In fact, in the post-war context, other than perhaps General Sarath Fonseka’s challenge during the presidential elections of January 2010, which split the war coalition in the south, these recent weeks have been among the most worrying of times for the Rajapakse regime. International criticism centring on questions of post-war accountability and political reconciliation has suddenly coincided with anti-government domestic mobilisations by a range of actors – from workers challenging the government’s pension schemes, estate workers calling for wage hikes, university teachers moving on strike actions and student unions opposing leadership training by the military for university entrants. While President Rajapakse’s strategy might be to wade through these difficult times until the criticism and resistance begin to subside, the question remains as to how a government that has won thumping victories in presidential, parliamentary and local government elections over the last two years has had to face such mounting challenges.

By Shihar Aneez and Ranga Sirilal COLOMBO, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's Board of Investment (BOI) on Thursday said it will prioritise approvals of investment into specific sectors as part of its thrust

11 June 2010 – The United Nations Industrial development Organization (UNIDO) said today it was helping the Sri Lankan Government to provide jobs to an estimated 40,000 widows in the island country’s northern and eastern regions, which bore the brunt of nearly three decades of civil war.

One of my friends in a discussion group in Colombo on ‘Democratising State and Society’ put forward the following challenge couple weeks ago. He said, a year after the end of the war, many of us who had been following the situation of the displaced people in the North, including the lack of freedom of movement and the militarization of the North have done little to engage the oppressive economic conditions of those affected by the war and now being resettled. That challenge was in the back of my mind as I visited Jaffna for ten days over the last two weeks. I tried to grasp what one could on a short visit. The following are very preliminary notes on the Jaffna economy, with a particular emphasis on agriculture and fisheries which ¬- despite technocratic and diasporic dreams of an information economy – continue to determine the economic life of the larger Jaffna population. These tentative notes I hope will stimulate some interest towards much needed research on the economy of the Jaffna District and the war affected Northern and Eastern Provinces.