Poverty has come down -WB

Sanjeevi JAYASURIYA

Sri Lanka’s development journey to middle income status can still be inclusive if people who start their lives in lagging regions of the country can be connected to leading areas where there are economic opportunities, World Bank (WB)Country Director for Sri Lanka and the Maldives Naoko Ishii said.

“However, targeted interventions aimed at simply relocating economic activities to lagging areas can in reality slow down economic progress because workers and firms earn higher returns when located close to the international gateway and to similar business, Ishii said.

Connecting people to prosperity and improving basic services are key to Sri Lanka’s economic prosperity, says the World Development Report 2009 titled “reshaping economic geography; connecting people to prosperity launched by the World Bank in Colombo yesterday.

“Development should unfold beyond economy. The geography of production continues to be unbalanced and geography of living standards should become flatter.

Sri Lanka’s public policies have been remarkably successful in levelling social welfare and preparing the ground for inclusive development while economic production has become concentrated,” Co-author and World Bank Senior Economist Dr. Somik V. Lall said.

“Poverty has come down in all provinces and service delivery in education, basic healthcare and basic infrastructure including water and sanitation is dispersed throughout the country,” Lall said.

Sri Lanka needs to build on what has already being achieved and design and implement more ambitious policies to improve living standards across provinces, amplifying but not dampening the processes of geographic transformation. The need is to prioritise how policies can be attuned to the scale of challenge of integration facing different areas.

The report identifies public policy priorities for improving living standards across different areas such as spatially blind policies of institutions, spatially connective policies and spatially targeted policies to stimulate economic growth in lagging areas.

It says that by making efforts along these dimensions policy makers can help in unifying Sri Lanka. Although geography of production will get further unbalanced, the geography of living standards will become more uniform.

The hope is that this transformation will lead to accelerated economic growth and enhanced social harmony.

source - www.dailynews.lk