Features

Village school reaches internet heaven and its irrigation tank gets new sluice gates

Published

3 years ago

2023/10/23

Thilina Walpola

Experiences with dedicated officials worth commenting on

by Lokubanda Tillakaratne

My village Maradankalla is located six kilometres south off Anuradhapura-Trincomalee Road (A12) above Mahakanadarawa wewa, near Mihintale, in the North Central Province. But I have lived in Los Angeles for the past 43 years. During all these years, this village is where my heart has been.

Although the history of Maradankalla spans centuries, it was not on the map of the country until 1947 when its elders built the one-room school hoping the government would hear about it and step into support. Soon after it was built, the small wattle and daub schoolhouse got space for the village on the maps that came out later. In the same year, the Anuradhapura Madya Maha Vidyalaya was started 10 kilometres south of the Sacred City, under the Central College concept of the C.W. W. Kannangara era. It remains the jewel and the axis mundi of the provincial education. But as time passed, villagers realized this well-thought of Kannangara idea helped create an educational tribal system. That’s a story for another day.

The two tales I write about say how this small village in the backwoods of Anuradhapura District got connected to telephone landlines and internet to its school, got two new sluice gates and a new spillway for its irrigation tank which irrigates 60 acres of paddy lands. This is an ode to all those involved in these projects discussed here.

For A/GB/Maradankalla school, the telephone line is the instant highway to communication and the internet heaven which most city folks take for granted. The two new sluice gates will replace leaky sluices built probably in the dinosaur age.

Disparate and Separate,Supposedly Equal

Sadly, though, over the last few decades, some schools, a few kilometres from Maradankalla, lost their map space and disappeared into the hereafter. One such school is A/GB/Ihalagama, above Mahakanadarawa wewa. It is deserted now. Its crumbling buildings occupy an eerie landscape overgrown with brush. Now only the families of elephants come there daily for night classes!

Nevertheless, thanks to the untiring dedication of the teaching staff and resilience of parents, Maradankalla school still survives, like similar schools threatened with lack of modern facilities and difficulties, to keep up with well-equipped schools elsewhere. This school is still a magnet to 180 students from a few villages around it. Like its sister schools in similarly remote areas, it has precious talent and hidden gems. Every year, it sends a couple of students to city schools on 5th grade scholarship examination results. One such student, a resident of Maradankalla itself, just graduated from the Peradeniya Medical School. Another is a Law College graduate. Few more attend universities still as I write this. So, any epithet that the village school students lack potential is a myth and an outright insult.

This shows what failure and shame rural education had been on the part of all of us. In my reckoning, this misfortune was due to lukewarm Interest from the education authorities to highlight and address the systemic decay in education equality in village schools, and failure to provide an environment with new pedagogical ideas and improvements to arrest the degeneration and make these schools attractive and competitive. Retooling them to fight the draw of urban sprawl and slow down students from migrating to the city schools never found a footing here. This put parents at greater disadvantage and pressure, appallingly first with pervasive national disgrace of payoffs to school officials to get the child’s place in the city school, and other related costs.

On the other hand, Madya Maya Vidyalaya, of the same age as Maradankalla school, has over 4000 students, and is crowded to suffocation. As expected, it sends many scores of students every year to universities for higher studies. It is in the class of education royalty with the designation of ‘National School’ which is generally rewarded with, among other perks, a computer room of substantial size with internet facilities. A NASA regional Control Room comes to my mind.

But no one should get lulled into thinking that students in the schools in run-down sections of the cities get the short end of educational opportunities and second-hand treatment, too, and use it as defence to rationalize inequities students in village schools receive. Less than exemplary treatment of schools in poorer sections of the city is an injustice beyond comparison, and unacceptable. But in the village, I might add, patronized by herds of wild elephants on a nightly basis and staffed by stellar teachers, the level of educational assistance the kids there get is so bad, it is an unspeakable travesty and tragedy. One should not tell me otherwise. I know. Because I once lived through it!

Until a few weeks ago, Maradankalla school had no phone landlines, therefore it was locked out of the Internet. But it has two working computers sitting in a converted classroom. Computer facilities elsewhere with every unit connected to the Internet and usually declared opened with pageantry by VIPs of the Machiavellian political nobility, in a room bristling with air-conditioning and so much care, to enter them one must remove shoes to prevent dust and detritus desecrating their holy environment.

Meanwhile, the principal of the village school sends his mandatory reports to the Kalaape (Zonal) office through his handphone, or while Gedara Yana Gaman through a copy. And faxing store in the town.For the principal in the city, it is so quotidian, it only takes him few keystrokes on his desktop computer: Disparate and separate but supposedly equal.

Homework or Looking for Landmines?

According to the Computer Literacy Survey for 2021 by the Department of Census and Statistics, North Central Province scored the lowest computer literacy rate in the country at 24.8% while the highest was reported, no surprise there, in the Western Province at 47.1%. Maradankalla feels the heat of this alarming disparity. It sits in the dead centre of the North Central Province.

When education policymakers send out fiat asking students to do homework using Internet on their handphones, they give little thought to these survey results. For convenience, these experts who devise education policies take them out of the equation. For them, the homework is for all students across the board, without caste or creed, in well-equipped schools and in schools with one or two working computers in a converted classroom.

Without land phone lines, a village school student has no access to the Internet, even if one is lucky enough to have a computer at home. These students use their parents’ flip phones, not the cool Samsung type others carry around with conceit. When the Education Lords ask these students to do homework and ZOOM classes by phone or at home at Maradankalla, it is akin to Marie Antoinette telling her subjects “Let them eat cake.”

During the COVID times, well, those few students who managed to have the out-of-production phones climbed the rocky outcrop by their village temple to do homework. They pointed the phones literally in all directions looking for good reception. The sad irony of this is that anyone who saw them would have mistaken them for looking for landmines using metal detectors! Meanwhile, our own Antoinettes and Antons of the policymaking fellowship carry beauties in the Rs. 200,000 range talking to their children attending foreign universities or working in embassies and consulates overseas. This is not hearsay or imagination. This is the reality.

After the Internet crept in as an educational tool, and not having it in Maradankalla school, for a long time I wanted to do something to mollify the burden dumped on its students and teachers by this ‘fair and modern educational atrocity.’ I spoke to the principal and decided to write to government officials and the private phone companies to see if they could help us to build the road to the Internet here. Sadly, after introducing Internet-based pedagogical practices, the education authorities seem to have not made any coordinated efforts to get village schools like Maradankalla connected to the wired telephone world.

In response to our appeals, the DIALOG phone company showed its heart and worth and stepped in. A couple of years ago, they built a giant tower about 400 metres from the school, hoping reception signals would improve. But the school was still out of luck as for some unknown reason, the signals were not strong enough to have a reliable and viable Internet connection to the school.

A Pensioner’s Crusade

Then, in 2018, I and my brother T. A. M. B. Thilakarathna, a retired special education teacher, took it upon us and wrote to SLT-MOBITEL in Anuradhapura for help to get a landline rolled out to the village. We knew it was a gargantuan task, probably a request that would easily end up in the waste-paper basket. That year when I came home on vacation, I also went to the Telecom office and repeated our request.

We knew the thought of rolling out six kilometres of coir rope was irrational and testing enough, thinking of a fibre-optic phone line even half that length connecting us to satellites many stratospheres above was beyond insane. But my brother, amiable, persistent and with an infectious smile at every turn, began to visit government offices in Anuradhapura looking for a solution to this problem. His milk-white fluffy beard resembling that of a Himalayan Rishi and matching moustache of a Ravana mirrored his determination for success. The unkept white band of hair in the back of his bald head danced like tail feathers of a messenger pigeon in flight.

Sure enough, as weeks and months passed behind him, the message he carried resonated enough, this unassuming retiree’s frequent visits to the telecom offices must have made its administrators’ hearts soften. They listened and decided to do something about his plight. Soon, the machinery of the bureaucracy came to life, loosened their joints and Maradankalla got the ticket to its wish – a phone landline to join the Internet.

(I must note with appreciation that our efforts on this project were boosted by the encouragement, advice and inordinate support we received from Themiya Hurulle, a patron with deep ancestral roots and affinity to the region.)

For a span of three weeks last month, the SLT-MOBITEL technicians and engineers worked on the construction of the phone lines. Showing his own hospitality and dedication, my brother spent a good portion of his monthly retirement deposit to buy food packets daily for about half a dozen workers.

Finally, the parents, their children and teachers got their desideratum granted. The school is now in the Internet brotherhood. I am paying its monthly Internet bills and my wife Niranjala, and daughter Mihiri have teamed up to design some ZOOM activities with the students. These gestures are not as grandiose as a parent buying a bus for a school, a new cricket pitch in the playground, all embarrassing and shameful but commonplace now in most schools in populous areas. But at least on paper, this school seems like it is on a level playing field on the Internet. A round-the-clock air-conditioned room with new computers will complete the curve. That is another educational infrastructure matter the school must work on.

Finally, my brother successfully persuaded 20 households out of 53 in the village to have landphone connections! He even paid half of some villagers’ application fees. That is evidence of how much interest these villagers have given a chance to better their lives.

Last month, when I came home with my family to Maradankalla on vacation, I found myself having to deal with another pressing problem in the village. This time it was another arm of the government bureaucracy.

Every time I come home on vacation, early in the next morning usually, almost as a ritual, we take a stroll on the tank bund in front of our home to listen to the songs of water birds, feel the warmth of the cold air blowing across the tank bed and watch the breathtaking sight of the morning sun radiating off dewy rice paddies spotted with peacocks pacing with glitter and swank.

However, on this day what we saw on the bund dampened our spirits. The two sluice gates, (horowwa) were mournfully open to the dry tank bed where sandbags covered their openings. They were cracked, and chunks of concrete were falling apart. Then at the end of Medieval-like Sluice gate. Note the cracks and sandbag used to open and close it.

The bund, the spillway had fallen apart due to shoddy construction and being part of an elephant crossing. I took 27 photos and decided to go and meet someone at the Provincial Irrigation Office about this potential calamity looming ahead in the coming Maha season.

Medieval-Age Sluice Gates Replaced

It is not an embellishment to say that villagers treat water in their irrigation tank as thicker than blood. How could one not agree?

Paddy cultivation is the only source of living for nearly all of these villagers.

So, I spoke to the village Govi Sanvidhana members, wrote a letter about this issue and with them went to Anuradhapura to meet the Provincial Irrigation Director Jayantha Herath and his area Engineering staff. I had little hope that day of turning the wheels of bureaucracy.

But the magnanimous response of the Director and his office was instant and remarkable. It proved their worth and being. The Provincial Irrigation leadership worked hard to get the sluice gates and spillway repaired. It went further and determined that the Provincial RDA with its expertise, ready machinery and labour would expeditiously finish the project before the Maha rains. They are working on the sluices and the spillway as I write this.

Other Attempts in the Past

In order to draw the attention of the government to the needs of the community, this is not the first time I have written to government officials.

In the early 1990s, President Premadasa decided to have an Udagama to be held in Mihintale. Immediately, word got out that villages in the vicinity of Mihintale were going to be linked to the electrical grid of the country as part of the celebrations. This news electrified the villagers in Maradankalla. Immediately, I wrote a letter to the then President and posted it hoping we might hit the jackpot. ‘What is there to lose,’ I thought at the time.

By writing the letter, I wanted to feel good about doing something, but never expected it would get anywhere. That is how these things usually work in big offices – if the letter didn’t get lost in transmission, there is a better chance it will get lost in translation. But the Good President made sure my letter ended up on the desk of the Electrical Engineering folks in Anuradhapura. Surprisingly, within weeks they came to Maradankalla looking for me. My brother met them, and the Engineer gave an update about the project that was going to follow. I won’t deny it, I was surprised and equally exhilarated to hear of this development.

Consequently, the villagers in and around Maradankalla got their illuminating moment. To optimize dwindling funding resources, we banded together to help out and cut trees along the route to clear space for the power lines. Although Maradankalla is eight kilometres from Udagama, now the home to the bustling Raja Rata University, it now has electricity. Life there with oil lamps and kerosene carts is long gone history. Unfortunately, President Premadasa’s untimely death prevented him from enjoying the Udagama and consequential fruits it brought to the area.

Allegory of the Stories

The allegory of these pleasant stories is if someone writes to the bureaucracy asking for help, not for personal but about an issue in your community, hold on to some hope. A godly person, and a mighty unusual one you didn’t know that existed sitting somewhere behind a desk in an office would read it. I am not naïve here to give a pass to all bureaucrats. But this official you write to is different – utterly decent, courteous and if you go to meet that person, he or she will shake your hand or close the palms together and say “Ayubowan,” offer you a seat and listen to your problem eagerly and earnestly as if it is that person’s own. He or she is sure to treat you like an equal and a friend, and in the middle of the conversation even offer you a cup of tea. That person is honourable and good, lives up to his or her responsibility and is kind enough to take up the issue and do something in their power.

Then villagers may not have to worry about Maha season water, thanks, in this case, to the Provincial Irrigation folks and Provincial RDA and its technicians and Engineer, or the folks who brought the Internet to their village school.

With the new sluice gates and the spillway, thankful Maradankalla villagers will be eager to start the Maha season work and look forward to the Yala season with water saved with air-tight sluice gates. With the Internet, village school students will have more ways to learn about homework assignments. Villagers will have the opportunity to listen to ubiquitous religious talks on YouTube and keep up with the Teledrama parade. These stories perhaps will no doubt become yesterday’s newspaper to many. But in my village, these are tales of life-changing moments, which they will talk about for many years to come. Each time the story is told, they will solemnly reminisce about the experience and thank those who made it happen.

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Features

Defend civic space upon which peace is built

Published

6 mins ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

International Peace Day was observed on 21 September. It finds Sri Lanka with a genuine achievement to record and a demanding test to meet. The UN’s theme this year was “Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.” It also honoured the “everyday architects of peace”—people driving local action and building a lasting peace from the ground up. In the 2026 Global Peace Index, Sri Lanka rose 30 places, from 97th to 67th among 163 countries. Over the same period, global peacefulness declined for the twelfth consecutive year to its lowest level since the index began, and South Asia suffered the sharpest regional deterioration. The test is whether the government will protect the civic space in which those architects of peace work.

Sri Lanka’s improvement is real and deserves acknowledgement. In this year’s review, issued a few weeks ago, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledged progress in the form of action against corruption, arrests and investigations linked to political killings, enforced disappearances and the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, and continued official denunciation of racism. A ranking, however, records conditions at a particular moment. It does not guarantee that they will last. Sustainable peace will depend on three factors. These are whether the government addresses the unresolved causes of conflict, whether it strengthens accountability for past and present abuses, and whether it protects the civic space in which peace is built from below. On the first two the record is incomplete. On the third, the draft NGO law threatens to weaken the very organisations that press for the other two.

What holds Sri Lanka back from a higher place are the same things that fed the war at home and also feed international conflict that rages elsewhere in the world. These are racism or ethnic nationalism that is narrow-focused, corruption and lawlessness. Equality, accountability and the rule of law are their remedies. The present government has committed itself to these, and is a significant improvement over governments of the recent past. But these pillars are not held up by governments alone. Peace is made in villages, workplaces and university campuses. It is made by families who insist on the truth about their disappeared, by journalists and lawyers who expose abuse, and by community organisations that bring Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese into practical cooperation.

Unfinished Work

The UN High Commissioner’s report to the current Human Rights Council session, covering October 2025 to July 2026, shows how much remains to be done. The Prevention of Terrorism Act is still being applied, producing arbitrary arrests and long detention without charge. The report calls for a moratorium pending repeal and for the release of long-term detainees. Military-occupied land has not been released, memorialisation lacks support, and tensions over land and religious sites persist. The Batticaloa district illustrates how such problems endure. In the past three years, two Presidents, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, have visited and instructed that the dispute over grazing land in Mailaththamadu and Mathavanai be resolved. It is a dispute between Tamil cattle farmers and outside Sinhala cultivators, and it has not been resolved. When two Presidents issue instructions and nothing changes, the fault lies in the machinery of State. An unresolved dispute does not stand still. It hardens into the next grievance.

Accountability shows the same pattern. The report documents torture and deaths in custody, and surveillance and intimidation of activists, journalists and civil society. Serious cases remain stalled for years, among them the killing of seventeen aid workers of Action Contre la Faim in Muttur two decades ago. Sharper still is the case of the Eastern University refugee camp at Vantharamoolai, where in 1990 the army took away 158 persons in a single day. They were never seen again. The camp’s officer-in-charge, Dr T. Jayasingam, later Vice Chancellor of the university, identified the officers responsible. More than three decades on, those officers have not been questioned. These cases are still remembered because families, survivors and independent witnesses have refused to let them be forgotten. Meanwhile several commissions of inquiry have completed their investigations but nothing further has happened.

What South Africa, Argentina and other post-conflict societies have found indispensable are four pillars of what is called “Transitional Justice” which are truth, accountability, reparations and non-recurrence. In Sri Lanka’s circumstances, truth means credible, independent investigation of what happened to the disappeared, and support for memorialisation. Accountability means prosecuting Muttur, Vantharamoolai and comparable cases, and removing credibly accused persons from senior office. Reparations mean compensation for victims and the return of military-held land. Non-recurrence means repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act, releasing those held under it in the meantime, and resolving local disputes such as Mailaththamadu before delay hardens them. A country that buries its past does not escape it. The past returns in the next generation.

Civil Society

It is against this background that the draft NGO law is most troubling. The proposed legislation contains sweeping provisions for State oversight and control of civil society organisations. Among these are enforcing a licensing requirement on NGOs, which is to be renewed every three years, and severe penalties for not submitting reports on time, or for spending on emergency flood relief (for instance) when the NGOs mandate is peacebuilding (as an example) with possible sanctions including deregistration and having to shut down. Civil society groups have warned that it would confer excessive discretion over their registration and operations. Officials in Sri Lanka have abused such powers in the past. Additional power without effective checks invites further abuse. Sound regulation would have clear criteria for registration, an independent registrar and a right of appeal to the courts. What cannot be justified is a regime in which registration becomes a licence to be withheld from organisations that scrutinise policy, expose abuses or advocate for the rights of citizens.

Democracy is based on checks and balances. Those who press for accountability are part of those checks. The contradiction is plain. A government that has pledged accountability, equality and the rule of law ought not to be preparing to weaken the very organisations that press for their fulfilment. The organisations most exposed are those working on disappearances, land, memorialisation and reconciliation in the North and East, where the State’s record is weakest and the need for independent witnesses greatest. Silencing them would not remove the grievances they document. It would remove the channel through which those grievances are addressed peacefully. The government appears to be relenting, which is welcome, but a pause is not a withdrawal. The bill should be withdrawn and any replacement drafted in genuine consultation with those it would govern.

Investment in peace as called for by the UN in its International Peace Day theme implies commitment over time, with returns that come slowly. Sri Lanka’s 30-place rise on the Global Peace Index is a first dividend and nothing more. It can be built upon only if the government matches its commitments with action: withdrawing or fundamentally redrafting the NGO law, repealing or suspending the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and bringing Muttur, Vantharamoolai and Mailaththamadu to resolution. A higher place in a global index is not a certificate of success. Sri Lanka’s higher ranking is an encouraging start, but it will endure only if the space in which citizens speak, question and organise is protected. Peace is built from below, and a government that is serious about it will treat civil society as a partner rather than a threat.

Features

Africa is buying: Sri Lanka must start selling

Published

7 mins ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

A call to Sri Lankan exporters and agencies: Can Sri Lanka compete with China and India in Africa?

By Kana V. Kananathan
Former Ambassador

Sri Lanka has spent decades concentrating its exports on traditional markets in Europe, North America and Asia. Yet across the Indian Ocean lies a rapidly expanding market that remains significantly underdeveloped by Sri Lankan exporters: Africa.

The opportunity is not theoretical. Sri Lanka already exports packaging, textiles, rubber products, pharmaceuticals, paper, machinery and electrical goods to African markets. The question is whether these modest beginnings can be transformed into a serious export strategy—and whether Sri Lanka can compete against the enormous commercial presence of China and India.

The answer is yes—but Sri Lanka must compete differently.

Kenya: Gateway to East Africa

Kenya should be the starting point.

Sri Lanka exported approximately US$32.08 million to Kenya in 2025, while importing US$11.41 million. But US$32 million is tiny compared with the opportunity: Kenya imported more than US$24 billion in 2025. Even a 1% share of that market would represent nearly US$240 million in annual exports.

And the commercial base already exists. Sri Lanka’s 2025 exports to Kenya included approximately US$9.99 million in paper and paperboard products, US$9.73 million in knitted fabrics, US$3.64 million in pharmaceuticals, US$1.24 million in rubber products and US$1.20 million in machinery.

Kenya’s import structure is equally revealing. In the third quarter of 2025, industrial supplies represented 34.4% of imports, machinery and capital equipment 19.2%, food and beverages 9.0%, and consumer goods 7.3%. The opportunity for Sri Lanka, therefore, extends well beyond consumer goods—we can become a supplier to African industry.

But competition is fierce. Asia supplied around 70% of Kenya’s imports in 2025, with imports from China rising 16.5% and those from India 11.3%.

Sri Lanka cannot challenge China and India across every product category. Nor should it try. We must target sectors where quality, specialisation, reliability, technical capability, smaller production runs and flexibility matter more than simply offering the lowest price.

Where Can Sri Lanka Compete?

Packaging is an obvious starting point. Cartons, boxes, bags and labels are already among Sri Lanka’s exports to Kenya. Importantly, some Sri Lankan companies operating in Kenya are themselves importing these products from Sri Lanka. The market already exists; the challenge is to scale it.

As Africa’s food-processing, pharmaceutical, apparel and consumer-goods industries expand, demand for sophisticated packaging will grow with them. Sri Lanka already possesses the manufacturing capability and industry experience to capture a larger share.

Industrial rubber products, tyres, gloves and specialised rubber components offer another opportunity where Sri Lanka has established manufacturing expertise.

The apparel supply chain is equally promising. Rather than competing directly with African garment factories, Sri Lanka can supply fabrics, elastics, labels, packaging and specialised textile inputs.

Some Sri Lankan apparel manufacturing and export companies already established in Kenya, Togo, Ghana and Ethiopia are importing several of these inputs from Sri Lanka. The supply chain, therefore, already exists. The next step is to move beyond supplying Sri Lankan-owned factories and become a competitive input supplier to the wider African apparel industry.

Other sectors deserving systematic market development include pharmaceuticals and medical consumables, processed foods, biscuits and confectionery, coconut products, cinnamon and spices, electrical products and cables, industrial chemicals, ceramics, light engineering, agricultural equipment and food-processing machinery.

Sri Lanka should also look beyond physical goods. IT, fintech, banking technology, engineering, healthcare, hospitality management and professional services largely escape the freight disadvantage confronting merchandise exports.

The Tariff Problem Can Become an Opportunity

Market access cannot be discussed without tariffs.The East African Community applies a Common External Tariff with bands of 0%, 10%, 25% and 35%, while certain sensitive products attract still higher protection. Simply filling containers in Colombo with finished consumer goods will therefore not always be commercially competitive.

But that obstacle points towards a bigger opportunity: manufacture in Africa.

Sri Lankan businesses could export intermediate materials while undertaking final assembly, manufacturing, processing or packaging in Kenya. Packaging companies could establish converting plants; electrical manufacturers could assemble locally; pharmaceutical companies could explore manufacturing or packaging partnerships; and food companies could undertake final processing closer to consumers.

Kenya would then become more than an export destination. It could become Sri Lanka’s manufacturing and distribution gateway into East and Central Africa.

With the East African Community now comprising eight partner states and extending geographically from the Indian Ocean towards the Atlantic, establishing a regional presence is increasingly more important than viewing each African country in isolation.

West Africa Cannot Be Ignored

Sri Lanka simultaneously needs a West African strategy.

Ghana offers potential as an English-speaking commercial gateway and host of the AfCFTA Secretariat. Nigeria, with its enormous population and consumer economy, should be approached as a major market in its own right, despite its greater regulatory, currency and operational complexity.

ECOWAS tariff bands of 0%, 5%, 10%, 20% and 35% again make product selection critical. Sri Lanka should concentrate on products with sufficient differentiation and margins to absorb freight, tariffs and distributor costs.

Pharmaceuticals demonstrate both the opportunity and the challenge. Nigeria imported approximately US$766 million in pharmaceuticals in 2025, with India supplying roughly US$394 million and China US$131 million. Ghana imported approximately US$301 million, with India supplying about US$140 million.

Sri Lanka cannot simply offer another generic product and expect to beat India on price. We must identify specialised products, reliable supply arrangements, partnerships and, where commercially justified, local production or packaging.

Stop Promoting Sectors—Identify Products

Sri Lanka now needs an Africa Export Opportunity Study based on individual products, not broad sectors.

The Export Development Board, Foreign Ministry, chambers and private sector should jointly identify 15–20 priority products. For each product, Sri Lanka should calculate the HS code, African annual import demand, principal suppliers, Chinese and Indian market shares, applicable duties, freight from Colombo, regulatory requirements, distributor margins and final landed price.

That will tell us where Sri Lanka genuinely has a competitive advantage.

The Commercial Test

Before spending resources promoting a product, apply one simple test:

African import demand + Sri Lankan production capability + tariff + freight + distributor margin + regulatory cost = final landed competitiveness against China, India and local African production.

Only products that pass this test should receive concentrated export-promotion resources.

This would move Sri Lanka away from exhibitions, delegations and general discussions towards what ultimately matters: specific products, specific buyers, specific distributors and actual export orders.

Give Our Missions Targets

Commercial diplomacy must become results-driven. The Government should set clear annual trade and investment targets for every Sri Lankan mission in Africa.

Missions should be evaluated not merely on diplomatic activity, but on buyers and distributors identified, business introductions made, investments facilitated, market barriers resolved and measurable exports generated.

In a competitive Africa, our missions must become active economic frontlines not merely diplomatic outposts.

A practical strategy could operate through three commercial gateways: Nairobi for East and Central Africa, Accra for selected West African markets and Lagos for Nigeria.

Sri Lanka’s total exports of goods and services reached approximately US$17.25 billion in 2025. Capturing even a small additional share of Africa’s enormous import market could, therefore, make a meaningful contribution to export earnings, investment and foreign-exchange generation.

Africa Will Not Wait

Sri Lankan exporters must stop looking at Africa as a distant or difficult market and start treating it as a strategic growth market.

We cannot compete with China and India on scale, but we can compete on quality, specialisation, flexibility and reliability. Exporters must identify country-specific opportunities, establish strong local distributors, build partnerships with African businesses and use Sri Lankan companies already operating on the continent as gateways into regional supply chains.

Where freight and tariffs weaken competitiveness, businesses must be prepared to move towards local assembly, joint ventures and manufacturing in Africa. Exporters cannot do it alone. They need aggressive, measurable and results-driven commercial diplomacy from Sri Lanka’s missions.

Africa is buying. Its markets are being captured now. Sri Lanka must stop watching from the sidelines. We must enter, compete, build our presence and secure our share.

(Ambassador Kana Kananathan is a businessman, Diplomat, lobbyist and an expert in African affairs, with over four decades of experience on the African continent. A long-time resident of Africa, he served as Sri Lanka’s envoy to Uganda and Kenya, with concurrent accreditation to 22 African Nations, and was the permanent representative to UN Habitat and UN environmental Programme. Over the years, he has been the Elections Monitor across the continent, working closely with African governments, and built enduring partnerships with African leaders. He also served as Economic and Investments Advisor to former President Professor Alpha Condé of the Republic of Guinea)

Features

Memories and Midnight Magic: Recipe for a perfect 31st Night dance

Published

8 mins ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

The heart of a great 31st Night dance is memory, and memories come rushing back when those 70s, 80s and 90s golden oldies begin to play — those timeless tunes that make revellers, young and old, rush to the floor and dance the night away.

A perfect 31st Night is not just a party. It is a journey. A journey through time.

The music should flow like a love story. Start slow, start soft. Let couples glide into a waltz for romance. Let the floor come alive with a twist, a rock ‘n’ roll, a jive. Let nostalgia build with beautiful sing-along oldies generally associated with a New Year’s Eve dance.

This is the art that many of our entertainers seem to have forgotten.

The final hour, before midnight, is sacred. It should be collective energy at its peak. The entire crowd, on the dance floor, linking arms, swaying together, singing, at the top of their voices, those sing-along favourites.

Yes, I’m referring to those immortal, nostalgic favourites that unite the world: ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ ‘When The Saints Go Marching In,’ ‘Roll Out The Barrel,’ ‘Celebration,’ ‘She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain,’ ‘Happy Days Are Here Again,’ and so many more.

One wonders if some of our modern entertainers have even heard of these nostalgia anthems that traditionally lead up to the dawning of the New Year! This is not just music; this is ritual.

Then comes THE moment: Lights dim. Music pauses. A hush falls. The countdown begins — 10, 9, 8… — hugs, wishes, tears of joy, and then … ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ Hands crossed, voices united, bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new. That moment makes or breaks the night.

Here is the truth that many genuine 31st Night revellers feel but hesitate to say — an overdose of baila music at New Year’s Eve events is NOT welcome.

Of course, baila is required. Baila is our Sri Lankan heartbeat! But a 31st Night dance is for everyone.

When it’s ONLY baila, the twist and rock n’ roll lovers, the waltz kings and queens feel left out. And they are the very people who MADE nostalgia! They are the die-hard revellers who have kept the 31st Night spirit alive for decades.

A family mentioned to me that they went along with friends for a 31st Night dance, in the city, to usher in 2026, and were thoroughly disappointed with the setup.

The bands in attendance, they said, failed to generate the excitement generally associated with a 31st Night event.

If given a free hand, the music at certain Colombo venues will be mostly baila, and that is going to disappoint many. Some are already worried that it will be just a baila scene this year, as well.

A memorable 31st Night respects all rhythms … yes, a waltz for romance, a twist and rock n’ roll for that 60s magic, a cha-cha, a slow foxtrot, and then the baila, after the countdown anthem.

That balance is what makes it inclusive, classy, and truly fun-filled.

Organisers, especially in Colombo, should keep this in mind: let it be 70% nostalgia – Western, and 30% baila, with the last hour left for pure baila madness, after the New Year is in!

Organisers must work out the programme for their 31st Night and instruct the entertainers to follow those instructions. The band should not dictate the night; the spirit of nostalgia should.

This New Year, let’s give Colombo what it truly wants — memories, midnight magic, and music for every soul on the floor.

Let’s dance into 2027 with class.