Sri Lanka has an impressive track record of reducing poverty and sharing prosperity more broadly. A dynamic decade that spurred post-war growth and continued with a process of economic transformation led to a productivity boost and labor reallocation from agriculture to industry and services....

Identifying opportunities to increase agricultural productivity and incomes is an important priority for rural development. Progress toward poverty reduction continued in recent years, but the contribution of the agriculture sector was weak, mainly because productivity improvements were...

Sri Lanka has made strong progress in reducing poverty and sharing prosperity among the less well-off in recent years. The poverty rate using the World Bank's 3.20 Dollars poverty line (in 2011 purchasing power parity) declined from 16.2 percent in 2012/13 to 11 percent in 2016, a reduction that...

The World Bank has engaged with the government of Sri Lanka in an advisory services and analytics (ASA) work entitled priorities for sustainably managing Sri Lanka's marine fisheries, coastal aquaculture and the ecosystems that support them. The development objective of this ASA is to support...

Sri Lanka is a small island nation lying in the Indian Ocean and consists of a mountainous area in the south-central region and a surrounding coastal plain. The climate of Sri Lanka is wet and warm, ideal for forest growth. Over the last century, more than two-thirds of this forest cover, rich...

Amid the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Sri Lanka's economy contracted by 3.6 percent in 2020, the worst growth performance on record, as is the case in many countries fighting the pandemic. Swift measures enacted by the government in the second quarter helped contain the first wave of...

The objective of the report is to raise awareness of the fiscal impacts that natural disasters have on the budget of the Government of Sri Lanka. It is envisioned to be used as a planning tool for the potential development of a comprehensive disaster risk financing and insurance strategy that...

Sri Lanka needs to address new challenges if it is to sustain its strong record of economic growth and poverty reduction. The country has in many respects been a development success story, with average growth exceeding 6 percent and a threefold decline in poverty using the national poverty line...

Despite significant challenges, Sri Lanka's economic performance remained broadly satisfactory in the first half of 2017. The corrective policy measures taken in the monetary and fiscal fronts have led to gradual stabilization. The construction sector's rapid recovery supported by a strong...

Recent policy measures have contributed to macroeconomic stability. However, with significant risks stemming from both domestic and external fronts, the balance of risks is tilted towards downside. To sustain growth, create more and better jobs and reduce poverty Sri Lanka needs to implement and...