Poverty in the Conflict Affected Region of Sri Lanka : An Assessment

This paper assesses poverty in the conflict-affected Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka using hitherto unavailable data due to the protracted civil war. Past four years of ceasefire has generated data that enabled the materialisation of this paper. The main arguments of this paper are that (a) on balance of evidence the conflict-affected Northern and Eastern Provinces are the most deprived Provinces in Sri Lanka in terms of income/consumption & human poverty, income & infrastructural inequality and vulnerability, and (b) restoration of good governance is imperative for combating poverty in the conflict-affected region of Sri Lanka