Sri Lanka, a role model to the world -Subinay Nandy

H.D.H Senewiratne

Sri Lanka is the leader in South Asia in relations to Milennium Development Goal (MDG), compared to the development the West/North had achieved, due to its localising of MDG goals to the local national policies, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Subinay Nandy said.

Subinay Nandy

" Sri Lanka has made significant progress, especially when compared to what the indicators were in year 2000, when the MDGs were officially established.

Therefor Sri Lanka could be considered as a role model example in the world," Nandy told the Daily News Business.

He said that Sri Lanka was able to eradicate extreme poverty from 26 percent to 8.9 percent by 2010, which was quite commendable.

Sri Lanka has done very well, because the government and national leadership had been very supportive to achieve those targets, he said. Sri Lanka also needs to focus on MDGs which had not performed as well as it had surpassed the ration of girls and boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education with more women than men, he said.

Nandy said that Sri Lanka had to actively pursue policies while encouraging women participation in women employment.

"With these developments, Sri Lanka was making the transition from humanitarian to developmen, focusing on the MDGs, which had become achievements and challenges," he said.

Further, 70 percent of Sri Lankans live in rural areas and the basket of goods that are consumed by them has been different to what was consumed by those who live in urban areas. But the government must pay more attention to the plantation sector and war torn areas, where the living standards needs to be improved. But at present, a lot of development was taking place in a big way, he added.

Nandy said that most infrastructure development projects have been happening which was commendable, but the most important thing was the return of investments. Therefore all infrastructure developments taking place should give due consideration to environment conservation, he added.