The last 10 years have seen Sri Lanka embark on several large-scale building projects as we entered post-war development, most notably our expressway system as well as the controversial Port City Project. While the Port City project is (famously) foreign-funded, the majority of our local large-scale building and infrastructure projects are funded by the State. The processes behind these large-scale infrastructure projects, from an administrative point of view, are quite interesting, although hardly talked about.
Independent think tank Verité Research has recently launched a report, “Opportunities to Protect Public Interest in Public Infrastructure”, that looks at regulations governing large-scale infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka, and is hosting a webinar, split across two days (7 and 8 July), to give the public a broad view into the findings of this report.
The webinar, "Development Projects: Better Regulations for Better Outcomes", examines three key areas of large-scale infrastructure development – public procurement, involuntary resettlement, and environmental impact assessment – looking at the current regulatory frameworks in each area and exploring key gaps and weaknesses. The webinar series will see Verité Research team members Uween Jayasinha, Senith Abeyanayake, and Mathisha Arangala presenting their research.
Brunch spoke to Research Assistant at Verité Research Abeyanayake for more insight into the report and the webinar series. Abeyanayake shared that the three key areas explored in the webinar series are integral parts of any large-scale infrastructure project.
Day one of the webinar looked into public procurement and involuntary resettlement with an accompanying panel discussion on involuntary resettlement featuring researcher, activist, and Bank Information Centre (Washington DC) Asia Consultant Iromi Perera, National Fisheries Solidarity Movement Training and Animation Officer Priyankara Costa, and Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) Senior Researcher and Head of the Local Government Programme Sriyanie Wijesundara.
Abeyanayake explained that the webinar won’t address any specific infrastructure projects but will be more focussed on things like the transparency of information, deviations, how effective regulation is, and weaknesses that may impact the outcome of a large-scale infrastructure project. Defining what Verité Research considers a large-scale infrastructure project in the context of its report, Abeyanayake explained that the report covers projects where government or state funds are used without any investment from the private sector.
Looking at the areas of involuntary resettlement and environmental impact assessments, Abeyanayake shared these two components of a large-scale infrastructure project take place before a project can begin and are somewhat linked. Involuntary resettlement is where the people who live on land that is being used for the infrastructure project are relocated. Here too, the webinar will look briefly at the frameworks in place and highlight the key gaps and weaknesses and gaps in the framework when it comes to community participation, how interactive these procedures are, and what the grievance mechanisms are like within the existing framework.
With environmental impact assessments (EIAs), Abeyanayake shared that EIAs are something that is already talked about in the public domain because of their necessity to be conducted from an environmental and wildlife conservation perspective. The webinar will look at the laws in place, the process, the performance, and, to a certain extent, the benefits of EIAs, and the stressors and bottlenecks within the existing framework governing EIAs for large-scale infrastructure projects. Verité Research’s findings on EIAs will be accompanied by a panel discussion featuring environmental scientist and former Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) Director General Dr. Sumith Pilapitiya, former Central Environmental Authority (CEA) EIA Division Deputy General Kanthi De Silva, and Environmental Foundation Ltd. Attorney-at-Law and Head of Legal Bhagya Wickramasinghe.
“The webinar series is a part of the entire research highlighting certain things that we felt should be disseminated in public,” Abeyanayake said, adding: “Large infrastructure projects have played a key role in Sri Lanka’s development agenda over the last decade, and in the public domain, there has been lots of discussion on the benefits of these projects. We wanted to go, in depth, into the mechanics of deciding a large infrastructure project and the costs and benefits of these projects, looking at things like the value for money invested.”
Abeyanayake added that while the report is very comprehensive, the webinar series provides a snapshot of the report for the public that focuses a lot on public concerns and public access to information to show what the public can do in ensuring some sort of oversight of participation. “Amidst the developmental challenges we face with the COVID-19 pandemic and our debt burden, better regulations are a necessary but often overlooked factor in aligning outcomes of large infrastructure to public interests.”
"Development Projects: Better Regulations for Better Outcomes" started yesterday (7) and continues today (8) at 2 p.m. via Facebook Live. To watch the series, please visit the Verité Research Facebook page. The accompanying report “Opportunities to Protect Public Interest in Public Infrastructure” is available on the Verité Research website: https://www.veriteresearch.org/.
How much can the public get involved in large-scale infrastructure projects?
08 Jul 2021
How much can the public get involved in large-scale infrastructure projects?
08 Jul 2021