• The time to act is before the next crisis

Sri Lanka has come a long way since the economic crisis pushed millions of families into uncertainty. But recovery is not the same as resilience. 

For many households, the buffers that once protected them from shocks remain depleted, leaving them vulnerable to new economic and climate-related pressures. Meaning, for many households, recovery remains fragile and their ability to withstand the next shock is far from assured.

The May 2026 World Food Programme (WFP) Rapid Household Food Security Assessment found that the proportion of households unable to meet their essential food needs has increased from 14% in 2024 to 20% in 2026, highlighting the continued pressure many families face from rising living costs.

Perhaps most striking is the changing profile of vulnerability. Food insecurity is no longer concentrated among traditionally vulnerable groups alone. Urban households, plantation communities, casual labourers, and communities affected by recent climate-related disasters are all experiencing growing pressure. Even lower-middle-income households, often considered relatively stable, are finding their purchasing power stretched. 

However, the significance of these findings extends beyond food security alone. They tell a larger story about resilience.

The findings should prompt us to ask a fundamental question: what happens when the next shock arrives? 

Climate shocks and food security

Over the past several years, Sri Lankan households have faced a succession of crises rarely experienced within such a short period of time. 

The economic crisis tested livelihoods and purchasing power. Climate-related disasters damaged homes, assets, and agricultural production. Global market disruptions increased pressure on already stretched household budgets. Each shock arrived before families had fully recovered from the last.

The cumulative impact of these overlapping crises is now becoming increasingly visible. Even as macroeconomic conditions improve, many households continue to operate with limited savings, limited food-purchasing capacity, reduced assets, and weakened coping capacity. 

This reality presents Sri Lanka with an important challenge. How do we ensure that the next shock does not reverse the progress already achieved? The answer lies not only in recovery, but in preparedness. This is why food security can no longer be viewed through an economic lens alone. It is also a climate issue.

While households continue to navigate the lingering effects of economic hardship, the country is simultaneously entering a period of increasingly unpredictable weather. 

As Sri Lanka looks ahead, climate forecasts indicate the likelihood of a strong El Niño event that could influence weather patterns across the world well into 2027. For Sri Lanka, this could mean increased risks of floods, landslides, and extreme rainfall in some areas, followed by drought and water stress in others. These events are not simply environmental concerns. They are food security concerns.

Climate shocks affect every part of the food system. Floods damage crops, infrastructure, and markets. Droughts reduce agricultural production and household income. Disruptions to supply chains can lead to rising food prices and reduced access to nutritious diets. For households already managing financial pressures, the consequences can be severe.

Most vulnerable hit the hardest

When crises strike, vulnerable families often have little choice but to adopt coping strategies that undermine their long-term wellbeing. Productive assets, such as land, livestock, or equipment, are sold. Savings are depleted. Spending on health, nutrition, and education is reduced. 

What begins as a short-term emergency can quickly become a longer-term setback that affects future opportunities and development outcomes. The result is often a cycle in which temporary emergencies evolve into longer-term setbacks.

The consequences can be particularly severe for women, children, and persons with disabilities. When crises strike, meals are reduced, diets become less nutritious, and household resources are diverted from health, education, and other essential needs. When crises strike and food runs short, women are often the last in the household to eat, and eat the least. 

For young children and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, even a short period of poor nutrition can cause lasting harm to health and development. Persons with disabilities, who often face higher living costs and fewer opportunities to earn, can find it harder to bounce back. Years of development progress can be reversed in a matter of months.

The importance of preparedness

This reality demands a different approach: preparedness. The objective is simple but transformative: act before predictable risks occur to prevent them from becoming humanitarian emergencies.

For decades, disaster management around the world has focused primarily on responding after a crisis occurs. Today, advances in forecasting, early warning systems, and climate science make it possible to take action before predictable hazards occur.

This approach, known as anticipatory action, represents an important shift from reacting to disasters to managing risk. In Sri Lanka, that transformation is already underway.

The Government and national disaster management institutions, with support from the WFP, are developing anticipatory action systems in the Gal Oya River Basin. These efforts are designed to protect more than 50,000 vulnerable people from flood impacts through early warning mechanisms and pre-agreed actions that can be activated before disasters strike.

Key Government agencies recently signed a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), detailing who does what, and when, once a warning is issued. This marks an important milestone, because it establishes a framework for coordinated action, ensuring that forecasts can be translated into timely support for communities at risk. It is a practical example of how preparedness can reduce losses, protect livelihoods, and strengthen resilience before an emergency unfolds.

These efforts form part of a broader national preparedness agenda, some of which are already under way.  Through its Adaptation for Resilience (Adapt4R) initiative, the WFP has committed nearly $ 2 million to strengthen climate services, anticipatory action systems, and disaster preparedness capacities across Sri Lanka. Emergency supplies have also been pre-positioned, ensuring assistance can be delivered rapidly when needed. 

At the same time, a nationwide assessment of 15,000 households is helping identify how El Niño-related risks could combine with existing economic pressures to affect food security across the country.

Together, these investments help build the systems, evidence, and operational readiness required to act before disasters become humanitarian crises. Preparedness, however, extends beyond emergency response. It also means strengthening the resilience of food systems themselves, from the farms that grow the country’s food to the nutrition programmes that depend on them.

Thriposha is one of Sri Lanka’s most important tools in preventing malnutrition among children and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, and it relies on a steady supply of high-quality maize. Through the Sow and Grow initiative, the Government and the WFP are promoting climate-smart agriculture, improved water management, and stronger domestic maize supply chains to ensure that the Thriposha programme continues uninterrupted. 

These investments help farmers adapt to changing weather patterns while strengthening a critical source of nutrition for children and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.

Staying ahead of risk

Ultimately, resilience is built long before a crisis occurs. It is built through stronger institutions, better information, effective early warning systems, and investments that help communities withstand future shocks. 

The lessons from recent years are clear. Economic crises, climate shocks, and global disruptions are no longer isolated events. They are increasingly interconnected risks that demand coordinated solutions.

Sri Lanka has already demonstrated remarkable resilience in navigating extraordinary challenges. The next step is to ensure that resilience is strengthened before the next crisis arrives.

By combining food security monitoring, climate-informed decision-making, anticipatory action, and resilient food systems, Sri Lanka has an opportunity not only to respond to risk, but to stay ahead of it. Because in an increasingly uncertain world, the most effective response to a crisis is not recovery after it occurs. It is preparedness before it begins.

(The writer joined the World Food Programme [WFP] in Sri Lanka as Representative and Country Director in August 2025. Prior to his appointment in Sri Lanka, he served as Secretary to the Executive Board and Director of the Executive Board Secretariat at the WFP Headquarters in Rome, where he played a key role in governance and policy engagement with member states. Over his more than three decades with the WFP, he has held senior leadership positions across humanitarian and development contexts, including managing emergency operations in Sierra Leone, Iraq, Haiti, and Syria. He also served as Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe, coordinating humanitarian responses across diverse contexts) 

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)