Sri Lanka Millennium Development Goals Country Report 2008/09

English

pdf (1MB)

Download

Sri Lanka Millennium Development Goals Country Report 2008/09

February 6, 2013

The second Country Report on Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) for Sri Lanka, it gives the progress of MDGs in Sri Lanka, since 1990.

During the period 1991-2008, economic growth in Sri Lanka has ranged around 4 to 7 percent. Economic growth is an important prerequisite for poverty reduction, and the analysis conducted in the context of this second MDG Country Report clearly shows that poverty rates are declining. Overall, Sri Lanka has achieved considerable success with respect to a range of social indicators that comprise the MDGs and is on track to achieving the MDG targets for most of the remaining social indicators. Although many indicators show encouraging trends at national level, still there are regional disparities which need the attention of policy makers and planners. Inadequate infrastructure and weakness of service delivery systems are the main factors behind these disparities.

Rapid reduction in poverty achieved since 1991/92 points toward the Government's increasing capability to improve the lives of the Sri Lankan people in a single lifetime. The challenges for continued poverty reduction in Sri Lanka, however, are to sustain the level of economic growth achieved over the previous decade while enhancing equitable distribution across provinces and districts and extend development beyond the Western province. At the halfway stage of the Millennium Declaration, Sri Lanka is at an encouraging stage where it is looking to achieve all the MDG targets by 2015. The second MDG Country Report clearly shows that the country's next attempt should be to move from the national-level to MDG localization at provincial and district levels, giving special attention to geographically-isolated and deprived regions.