Rebuilding Housing Post-Ditwah: Lessons from Sri Lanka’s Tsunami Experience
The recent Cyclone Ditwah damaged over 80,000 houses in Sri Lanka, ranking second only to the December 2004 Tsunami. The government has announced a redevelopment programme to assist affected families in rebuilding their homes in safer locations. It has many similarities to the 2005 post-Tsunami housing programme and holds important insights as outlined in the Post-Disaster Housing: Lessons Learnt from the 2004 Tsunami of Sri Lanka, to inform the Ditwah Cyclone housing initiative.
After Cyclone Ditwah: Climate-Proofing Sri Lanka’s Health System
As Sri Lanka currently counts human and economic costs of Cyclone Ditwah, the images are both disturbing and somewhat familiar: flooded hospitals, access roads buried by landslides, evacuation centres overflowing with displaced families, and officials in health and disaster management services scrambling to meet everyone’s needs. The death toll is at 355 and rising, with hundreds more missing and over 200,000 displaced, with effects being borne disproportionately in the central hills and low-lying river basins across the country. It has once again placed the spotlight on the preparedness of our disaster response ecosystem, and with climate-related disasters no longer a few and far between, Cyclone Ditwah is a tragic but predictable reminder and caution of the same vulnerabilities that have persisted for years.
Forest Restoration: Where Does Sri Lanka Stand?
This year, the International Day of Forests is marked under the apt theme “Forest restoration: a path to recovery and well-being”. Forest restoration is one of the priority areas for mitigating the effects of climate change. Restoration and sustainable management of forests will help absorb atmospheric pollutants, re-build natural habitats and sustain life on earth.
This blog discusses Sri Lanka’s declining forest cover and offers suggestions on how the drivers of deforestation can be countered.
Weathering Disasters: Why it Pays to be Prepared
Disasters such as COVID-19 can significantly impede development. While it is difficult to avoid being affected by disasters, disaster preparedness can reduce the costs, and quicken the recovery.
Linking Disaster Risk Management into Economic Policy Planning in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka was ranked as the second most affected country by the impacts of weather-related losses in 2017, according to the Global Climate Risk Index 2019. Worryingly, the country’s situation has worsened since 2016. This highlights Sri Lanka’s vulnerability to climate impacts and the need for effective policies. The good news is that the 2019 Budget proposes several measures to improve Sri Lanka’s disaster resilience. In this blog, Kanchana Wickramasinghe discusses the challenges and gaps in disaster management and the ways in which Sri Lanka can improve its capacity to face these calamities.
Demystifying Hawala/Undiyal – The Not So Dismal Science:[…] believed that informal fund transfer operations in Sri Lanka have expanded considerably due to the wide gap between the…