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Sri Lanka
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Situation and cooperation
Two key events have shaped Germany’s development cooperation with Sri Lanka in recent years: the tsunami on 26 December 2004 and the renewed outbreak of civil war in 2006, which was not ended until May 2009.
Since 1983, Tamil separatists in the north and east of the country had been fighting for an independent Tamil state. In 2002, the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) signed a ceasefire agreement, as a result of which the situation initially improved markedly. Yet the problems at the core of the conflict remained unresolved and the peace process became increasingly deadlocked.
The tsunami on 26 December 2004 brought additional suffering and destruction. Sri Lanka was one of the countries particularly badly hit. Some 38,000 people lost their lives, while hundreds of thousands more were forced to flee or lost their homes.
The hostilities in the north and east of the country made it increasingly difficult to implement German development cooperation projects. Adjustments were therefore made and cooperation activities were geared to the area of conflict transformation. The focus of current development cooperation is on measures concerned with peace education and conflict prevention. Only a small number of additional activities were agreed after the end of the civil war and are focused mainly on disaster risk management, mine clearance and refugee relief. Bureaucratic obstacles still make it difficult to reach some sections of the rural population and provide the best possible support for local projects.
The reconstruction activities launched in 2005 in the aftermath of the tsunami have now been wound up. Following the tsunami, the German government pledged 74 million euros in governmental emergency aid. It was used among other things to reconstruct housing and infrastructure, to repair and restore water supplies and to promote small businesses and vocational training.
Poverty
The population in Sri Lanka had an average annual per capita income of 2,240 US dollars in 2010. According to the World Bank classification system, that makes Sri Lanka a lower middle-income country. The country was ranked 97th out of 187 on the 2011 UN Human Development Index (HDI).
The latest statistics indicate a poverty rate of 23 per cent. However, these statistics do not take the former conflict region into account, as no data have been recorded there for a long time. It is likely that due to war, displacement, dependence on emergency aid and subsistence farming, the poverty rate in that region is much higher. Germany provides development-oriented emergency and transitional aid through international organisations and German non-governmental organisations.
Income is very unequally distributed between the urban and rural populations. About half of the country's total economic output is concentrated in the region around the capital Colombo. Many workers on the tea, rubber and tobacco plantations, however, live at subsistence level.
Nevertheless, overall Sri Lanka has good prospects of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015. The literacy rate is 91 per cent. Schools are available in all parts of the country and there is a national health system that guarantees free and universal access to primary health care.
Economic situation
Sri Lanka is in a reconstruction phase and has seen some high growth rates. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 8 per cent in 2010 - the highest level for 32 years. The government growth forecast for 2011 is 8.5 per cent. The economic recovery is closely connected with the end of the civil war. Farming is resuming in the north and especially the east of the country. The state is investing in the extension and rehabilitation of the infrastructure, and tourism has seen a sharp rise. The GDP is boosted by the substantial remittances from migrant workers: 1.8 million Sri Lankans, more than a fifth of the workforce, are employed abroad. In 2010, they transferred 4.1 billion US dollars to their home country.
The government wants to develop Sri Lanka as a regional trading hub in South Asia, and investment in large infrastructure projects is high, for example in the construction of a deep-water port in the south of the country, the construction of a new international airport and the expansion of road and rail networks.
If more foreign investors are to be attracted, however, governance and transparency need to be improved, bureaucratic obstacles eliminated and regional differences reduced. The continuing high level of military spending is diverting urgently needed financial resources away from development. The efficiency of public institutions must be increased, as must the competitiveness of the Sri Lankan corporate sector.
Sri Lanka is a member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). However regional cooperation is in its infancy. Sri Lanka fears that opening its markets may result in them being flooded by Indian goods. Regional cooperation is therefore doing little to boost development in Sri Lanka.
Human rights
Sri Lanka ratified all the important human rights conventions many years ago. However, with the outbreak of civil war in 1983 came a change in the general framework: regulations introduced because of the state of emergency provided a legal basis for systematic violations of human rights by the security forces and for restrictions on civil rights. The military, police and special forces were massively reinforced and defence spending increased. Tamils were subject to arbitrary arrest, disappearing into unknown prisons without any charges being brought. The fate of thousands of people is still unclear. Human rights violations dating back to the civil war have not yet been prosecuted.
Non-governmental organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and the international community have repeatedly called for the human rights situation in Sri Lanka to be improved. The European Union withdrew tariff concessions for Sri Lanka in August 2010 until further notice because internationally agreed human rights and labour rights were being disregarded.
Development potential
Sri Lanka’s potential for development lies in its advantageous geographical position, its relatively well trained workforce and a willingness on the part of the government, the private sector and sections of the population to compete on international markets. The industries that are important for the country’s economic development, such as tea production, textiles, leather processing and tourism must be further developed and new areas opened up, so that the country remains internationally competitive. The sectors that are important for the country’s economic development, such as tea production, textiles, leather processing and tourism, must be further developed and new sectors opened up if the country is to remain competitive at international level.
Development depends essentially, however, on a reconciliation process leading to the peaceful coexistence of all religious and ethnic groups. Political solutions must be found that are effective in the long term and address the interests of all population groups. The path of dialogue and reconciliation is the only path which in the long term holds out viable prospects for the country and will lead to peaceful coexistence among the people living in Sri Lanka.
Priority areas of German cooperation with Sri Lanka
In line with the OECD guideline for operating in conflict situations – "stay engaged, but differently" – the focus of German development cooperation in Sri Lanka is currently on conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
One of the challenges currently arising in the context of development cooperation is to provide assistance to people affected by the conflict and internally displaced persons in the north and east of the country so that they are able to return to their home or other suitable communities soon and achieve long-term livelihood security. They need assistance in dealing with the traumatic experiences they have lived through, in restoring social structures, in securing gainful employment and in finding ways to live in peace with each other.
In 2011, the BMZ pledged 16.5 million euros for the continuation of ongoing German development cooperation activities in Sri Lanka.
Conflict prevention
Under the adapted strategy for development cooperation with Sri Lanka, the projects are geared towards conflict sensitivity and concentrate on designated poor regions of the country. The thematic priorities of ongoing German activities are:
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Peace education (basic and further training of teachers, psychosocial support in schools, trauma processing, second language education, exchange programmes)
- Promotion of social integration and transformation initiatives (strengthening the political and social participation of disadvantaged groups, supporting civil society organisations)
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Administrative support in the north and east of Sri Lanka (training activities for technical and managerial staff in provincial and local government, promotion of women's groups in rural areas)
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Promotion of microfinance institutions (professionalisation of the microfinance sector, extending the range of financial service offered, targeted integration of disadvantaged and war-affected groups)
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Peace promotion through vocational training for young people in the east of Sri Lanka (improving vocational education in the local construction industry in Batticaloa district, incorporation of aspects of peace-building into state-certified training programmes)
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Promotion of the reintegration of returning refugees (development-oriented emergency and transitional aid in the northern province of Vanni, reconstruction in the farming, fisheries and education sectors, strengthening state structures, processing of war experiences in children and young people).
In addition, the following activities are in preparation:
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Establishment of a vocational training centre for co-educational training of Sinhalese and Tamils in northern Sri Lanka
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Construction of a maternity clinic.
International donors
Traditionally, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and Japan have been Sri Lanka’s major donors. They were joined in 2007 by China which, having made a number of major investment pledges, has become the country’s largest donor. Iran has opened a credit line for Sri Lanka to enable oil to be imported and a refinery to be developed. Many of the Western donors have largely pulled out of Sri Lanka. Only the USA, the Netherlands and Germany are present in Sri Lanka, with a focus on conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
The United Nations and the European Commission are involved in joint projects with numerous international non-governmental organisations in the field of humanitarian assistance. In addition to that, they are supporting transition and stabilisation measures.
Information
Publications
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Promotion of Good Governance in German Development Policy
Strategies 178
(PDF 277 KB, accessible) -
Human rights in practice: Fact sheets on a human rights-based approach in development cooperation
BMZ Information Brochure
(PDF 1.5 MB, accessible) -
Human Rights in German Development Policy
BMZ Strategy Paper
(PDF 574 KB, accessible) -
Preventing corruption – promoting transparency: What is German development policy doing?
(PDF 177 KB, accessible) -
Disaster Risk Management – Contributions by German Development Cooperation
(PDF 1 MB, accessible)
