Sri Lanka’s targeted cash transfer benefits scheme Aswesuma includes 26% of total recipients who are not in poverty, Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) Senior Advisor H. M. Gunathilake told the Committee of Public Finance (COPF) on Friday (21).
“The inclusion error- the inclusion of persons who are not in poverty, was 26%,” Gunathilake said to the COPF, revealing the findings of a study conducted by the Colombo-based think tank on the poverty alleviation scheme.
Sri Lanka allocated Rs. 183 billion for the Aswesuma welfare benefit scheme in its 2024 budget, spending three times the amount spent on it in the previous years, aimed at providing relief for two million families.
“According to what we found, Aswesuma’s exclusion error rate was 58%,” he said, elaborating that the inverse, or exclusion of persons in poverty from the scheme, was also high.
“This is higher than that of Samurdhi. We know that Samurdhi as a scheme had a large exclusionary problem, with a 48% rate of exclusion. This is, to put it simply, the exclusion of the poor from receiving benefits.”
In December 2022, the government of Sri Lanka launched Aswesuma, designed to replace the longstanding Samurdhi programme. The introduction of Aswesuma aligned with the expectations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), of which Sri Lanka was to secure a $ 2.9 billion loan agreement.
The scheme was meant to reduce public expenditure leaks and enhance the efficiency of social welfare spending.
Last year, the government’s own independent economic research agency: Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) found that 40% of food-insecure households were excluded from receiving benefits under the welfare programme.
Gunathilake said that the CEPA conducted its study first by setting out to identify whether the recipient families were in poverty or not, based on their own analysis. “Next, in our survey, we asked each family whether they received the Aswesuma benefits or not; from which we derived how many poor families received the benefits.”
“The inclusion error, the inclusion of persons who are not in poverty, was 26%. Both indicators are important as we cannot afford to be giving benefits to persons who are not legible. From the sample, 58% of persons we found to be not included in the scheme.”
Sri Lanka in its 2025 budget, unveiled the largest-ever allocation for Sri Lanka’s social welfare programme, with a sum of Rs. 232.5 billion earmarked for Aswesuma.
Though the government's budget allocations for Aswesuma for the year are in alignment with the IMF requirement of allocating within 0.6% of GDP for social protection, experts have raised concerns over uncertainties about whether the allocated funds will suffice if additional families are added to the beneficiary list.