Adopting Green Growth strategies in Sri Lanka

L. Padmini Batuwitage Ph.D. Hon. Advisor to the Ministry of Environment, Sri Lanka, Former Additional Secretary (Environment and Policy), Ministry of Environment, Sri Lanka.

Follwing is the summary of a research paper written for the Symposium on Facing Contemporary Development Challenges of Sri Lanka: Relevance of Dr. E. F.Schumacher's Work Presented by Practical Action South Asia.

The present multiple global crises related to finance, economics, energy, fuel, food, security and wider environment bear testimony to the ill effects of profit oriented economic growth models that ignored limits to growth.

While technological advancements have improved the standards of living of communities dramatically, such achievements have created mixed results with global environmental degradation and widening the gap between rich and poor due to uneven and unsustainable development. Today we face more complexities in making choices in day to day living as the natural resource usage and pollution are exceeding the carrying capacities of the ecosystems. These challenges are increasingly daunting due to the net addition of more than 70,000,000 humans to our planet each year.

Developing countries such as Sri Lanka are more vulnerable as the present crisis continues spreading in different scales in different forms in all the countries irrespective of the magnitude of their contribution to the root causes of the crises.

Sri Lanka has made significant comparable achievements in social indicators of human development with nearly ten times lower income than that of highly developed countries.

This unique historical societal development provides a valuable model to both national and global leaders, about the benefits and possibilities of adhering to the “middle path” focusing on the distinction between income and capital. Major challenges that government has to face today are: ensuring growing economic prosperity in the country and ensuring that the benefits of the developments filter down to all Sri Lankans with long term sustainability, which is an imperative to achieve sustainable and equitable development.

Prudent investments in application of green growth strategies will be a way forward. Ample policies are currently available in the country to improve efficient resource use and reduce wastage. For effective implementation of these policies, an integrated approach is necessary combining policies, regulations, incentives, technologies and financial resources with public, private and people sector engagement.

Absence of or deficiencies in one of these elements will have negative impacts on achieving the desired outcomes. The root causes of failures of many significant initiatives to achieve expected outcomes in the country is due to either failure of or inability to follow an integrated approach and identify the right mix of interventions necessary to address the challenges during implementation through effective monitoring and reporting systems.

Ideas expressed by Dr E.F Schumacher in his publication of “Small is Beautiful” are specifically relevant to Sri Lanka as he has linked the modern economic perspectives with the Buddhist philosophies which have strongly ingrained into our culture and thereby into the national policies from the ancient times.

Schumacher underscored the significant insights of Buddhist way of life that can be called as ‘Buddhist Economics’, just as the modern materialist way of life has brought forth modern economics. He argued that while the materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is mainly interested in liberation, but, Buddhism is “The Middle Way” and therefore in no way antagonistic to physical well being. He pointed out that from an economist's point of view, the marvel of the Buddhist way of life is the utter rationality of its pattern - amazingly small means leading to extraordinary satisfaction of results.

Schumacher recognized the duality of the human requirement when it comes to the question of size and specified that there is no single answer for it.

He recognized that human needs many different structures both small and large, some exclusive and some comprehensive and recommended to restore some kind of a balance in decision making,

In line with Schumacher's framework, Sri Lanka can transform many of the challenges of the present multiple crisis into opportunities if the citizens are sufficiently empowered with necessary skills and knowhow to identify appropriate technologies for the country, engage in responsible livelihoods and responsible lifestyles. As Schumacher emphasized, ‘Knowledge, Organization and Discipline’ are the three elements that make development interventions effective to produce desired outcomes.

Sri Lanka needs a skilled human resource base to support application of green growth Strategies Island wide.

It is necessary to take steps to integrate environmental concerns sufficiently into the school, vocational, technical and university education systems to face the present and emerging global and local challenges effectively and efficiently. This approach will eventually create more green and decent jobs for the youth island wide securing their future more sustainable.