Realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seems to be on the backburner for Sri Lanka at present, against the backdrop of the economic crisis and ensuing bankruptcy, with the country only now on the recovery path.
However, SDGs need to be a priority, asserted Global Sustainability Solutions Chairman Uchita de Zoysa, noting that the lack of a sustainable development plan had led Sri Lanka to this unfortunate point.
Sri Lanka is in 83rd position out of 166 countries in the Global SDGs Index 2023, according to a report compiled by a group of independent experts led by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs.
The progress chart for 2023 for SDGs published by the United Nations (UN) states that among the assessable targets, only a mere 15% are on track towards timely achievement.
Given this situation, and being a developing country with a lot on its plate in terms of its economic status, is Sri Lanka prioritising SDGs?
No priority for SDGs
Speaking to The Sunday Morning, de Zoysa said: “Sri Lanka is not prioritising any SDGs. They were prioritised when initially signed, but implementing the SDGs requires an integrated system and strategy. Currently, there is no prioritising of the SDGs, aside from the President, who keeps talking about climate change without taking action on climate financing. Yet, as far as I know, no funds have been received for this purpose.”
He noted that the SDGs were not about fragmented projects, which he said was another problem that needed to be addressed. “In the name of projects, some personnel try to raise a few dollars and spend them on unnecessary events,” he added.
Sustainable Development Act
De Zoysa pointed out that in 2017, Sri Lanka had passed the Sustainable Development Act, with the Government’s primary responsibility being developing a sustainable development policy, monitoring it, and updating its position. However, he said that Sri Lanka lacked a national policy on sustainable development and had no monitoring, evaluation, follow-up mechanisms, and financing architecture.
He noted that Global Sustainability Solutions had created an independent monitoring, evaluation, and review mechanism because neither the Government nor the UN was fulfilling this role.
“The mechanism uses a rating scale from minus five to plus five and evaluates everything possible from our side in 2022. A recent update was also done. This is an initiative we have undertaken independently,” he added.
Barriers and reasons
“It’s not merely a financial problem for Sri Lanka to proceed with the SDGs. I served as the Sustainable Development Advisor for Sri Lanka in 2016 and 2017 and during that period, the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Wildlife was comparatively active, with a lot of planning done during 2016-’17,” he highlighted.
However, he said that many initiatives had been abandoned after 2017, including by the bureaucracy, and that subsequent political regime changes had further pushed the actions towards realising the SDGs into a corner.
“We cannot name even one person in the Government, including Parliament, who has significantly advanced any of the SDGs. As a result, progress remains stagnant,” he said.
Action needed
“First, a country needs to have a genuine political commitment – not just by claiming dedication to the 2030 Agenda, but through tangible actions, including domestic resource mobilisation, which has yet to happen,” de Zoysa asserted.
“We are a bankrupt nation because we lack a mission, strategy, foresight, or any substantial planning. The obstacles are clear: Sri Lanka has prioritised escaping the debt trap over sustainable development. But why are we in a debt trap? Because we have not pursued or committed to a sustainable development path. Therefore, obstacles are largely internal,” he added.
He also said that Sri Lanka did not have a national policy that defined an overarching sustainable development strategy: “We lack a financing plan, a monitoring and evaluation mechanism, and a reporting system. There is nothing in place, even after nearly eight years. All these missteps point to one reason: there is no sustainable development plan in the country.”
Meanwhile, Central Environmental Authority (CEA) Chairman Venura Fernando, speaking to The Sunday Morning about the activities being carried out towards achieving the SDGs, said that the SDG unit was primarily under the President.
“The CEA is implementing all proposals and actions on the ground level to achieve the SDGs with guidance from the Sustainable Development Council of Sri Lanka,” he added.
Sectors in focus
Fernando said that a five-year project had been initiated with Unilever, a key enabler of which would be a Public-Private Partnership between Unilever, the CEA, and the Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA), to clean and improve the health of the Kelani River, which provides drinking water to four million Sri Lankans.
He added that the project aligned with Unilever Sri Lanka’s broader sustainability agenda, which extended to addressing climate change, protecting nature, promoting responsible plastic use, and recognising the vital role of healthy ecosystems in supporting livelihoods. He added that the CEA was also focusing on improving air quality.
Regarding the challenges facing the CEA, Fernando said that the primary challenge was in collaborating with relevant industries as an authority. “Amid the economic crisis, industries are hesitant to invest in technical aspects and introducing and implementing technology into their processes require substantial effort,” he added.
Fernando said that the CEA was conducting numerous educational programmes aimed at educating schoolchildren and communities to raise awareness about the environment. “Individual responsibility plays a crucial role in reducing plastic usage, but we must also instigate behavioural changes in society through price adjustments,” he noted.
CEA’s purview
The Sunday Morning also spoke to CEA Director General P.B. Hemantha Jayasinghe, who said: “We are engaging in numerous activities to protect and manage the environment, which may not be explicitly labelled as SDGs, but they indirectly align with several of them.”
The CEA oversees all such projects in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, following the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) procedures and through these activities we indirectly support achieving the SDGs,” he added.
Jayasinghe noted that responsible consumption and production were directly linked to obtaining an Environmental Protection Licence (EPL). “Therefore, if industries are not managing their operations responsibly and are discharging wastewater or emitting pollutants into the environment, we intervene to control it. In this manner, we indirectly contribute to the SDGs.”
“While the country already has a National Environmental Act in place, which helps ensure better environmental maintenance, the country is lagging behind in terms of fully aligning with the SDGs,” Jayasinghe noted.
Speaking about the challenges, Jayasinghe said that the Government’s budget allocation for environmental conservation needed to be comparable to the levels allocated for the health and education sectors and that the Government should invest more in pollution control, soil conservation, and environmental preservation activities.
“For example, there are 103 water basins around the country and there are many rivers with widespread water waste and poor water quality. However, we do not have the funds to treat the water to maintain safe consumption levels. Therefore, the authorities, especially local authorities, should be empowered,” Jayasinghe asserted.
Financing SDGs
Realising the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development requires a significant increase in investment, as limited financial resources have hindered progress toward achieving the SDGs.
According to an Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) study by Research Fellow Lakmini Fernando, Sri Lanka needs an additional investment of $ 1.4 trillion, or 12.5 percentage points of the GDP, by 2030 to achieve the SDGs.
The study shows that achieving the SDGs in developing countries faces an annual financing gap due to uneven economic growth, unsustainable production and consumption, increasing debt, climate change, limited fiscal space and institutional capacity for SDG projects, weak financial systems, misaligned incentives and regulations, limited awareness, and challenges in identifying, measuring, and reporting sustainable investments.
Sustainable Development Council outlook
The Sunday Morning spoke to Sustainable Development Council of Sri Lanka (SDC) Director General Chamindry Saparamadu on where the country stood regarding achieving SDG targets.
She pointed out that based on the global framework, Sri Lanka had set national targets for 163 SDG targets, noting that the respective ministries had identified these national targets and communicated them to the SDC. She added that the SDC had been working on the process for a while now and was currently monitoring the progress, looking at where the gaps were, and then considering various strategies to accelerate efforts.
Saparamadu also addressed alleviating poverty through SDGs: “We are focusing on poverty, hunger, and almost all of the 17 SDGs. The targets are not set annually for poverty. The latest official data for poverty is from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS). The poverty levels have increased since then because of Covid-19 as well as the economic downturn. We need a realistic target based on the country’s current situation and we have set a target to reduce the national poverty level to 8% by 2030.”
She highlighted increased interest from the country’s private sector in contributing to social and environmental issues rather than merely focusing on profit. She further added that the council was working with both the Government and the private sector to accelerate ongoing efforts, with several initiatives having been taken.
Commenting on the progress on the SDG on climate action, she said that a new climate change policy had been approved in the country, with a climate office being established to improve coordination and multi-stakeholder engagement in addressing climate change-related issues.
Earlier this month, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce held the Sri Lanka Climate Summit 2024, where it came up with a roadmap to address prevailing issues and mobilise all businesses to commit to SDGs in order to achieve Sri Lanka’s carbon net zero targets by 2050.
“We have developed a national strategy to promote inclusive and sustainable businesses because, while the private sector’s commitment towards sustainability has been discussed for a long time, the inclusivity dimension needs to be better covered,” Saparamadu noted.
According to her, this strategy expects to drive the private sector to look at various inclusivity aspects in integrating vulnerable and marginalised communities into supply chains, considering the employment of women and other groups, and making a social impact at the community level.
Addressing the challenges in achieving SDG targets, Saparamadu pointed out that the financing landscape, given the constrained fiscal space, was challenging, with a need to put in a great deal of effort to secure suitable investments.
She added that policy consistency needed to be established in order to ensure that people understood precisely what policy was being implemented. This requires public service delivery efficiency from the Government and innovative ways must be considered to achieve it. She added that there must also be a transformation in how the public sector worked.
“According to a mapping conducted by the council on the 2024 National Budget, significant allocations are directed towards various SDGs, with a considerable portion earmarked for social protection. This substantial allocation towards social protection aligns with our priorities and our agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Additionally, through the ‘Aswesuma’ initiative, there has been a focus on restructuring the social protection system by improving targeting,” she explained.
Saparamadu highlighted that there was limited fiscal space within the public, the Government, and the National Budget due to the country’s economic situation, which was why it had to be supplemented by interventions or investments from the private sector. She however noted that the private sector had also been facing severe challenges in accessing specific capital markets.
“On the financing side, things will improve after we agree on the debt restructuring. Sri Lanka can then also access capital markets with the support of other entities like the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), since all are collectively working on looking at innovative financing measures, such as blended finance instruments and green bonds and various ways of mobilising additional resources to finance these sustainable development targets,” she stated.
She concluded that while initiatives were currently in progress, the council would like to see them accelerate somewhat even as it continued to work on them.