Features

Friends I made along the way, meeting in Colombo and on to Malaysia

Published

3 years ago

2023/08/20

(Excerpted from Memories that linger: My Journey in the World of Disability by Padmani Mendis)

Barbara McNamee was from Jamaica. She became my friend when we met in the month of October in 1958 as student nurses at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital (ROH) in Birmingham, England. I have shared memories of our time together then in an earlier part of this memoir. We had been together for five years and three months. Mahin and Lyda both from Iran, then Persia were also with us.

The four of us became good friends during our first few days at the ROH. And we have remained close friends since then. In those first months, two calypso songs were particularly popular in the UK. They had just been released by the singer Harry Belafonte and were both about Jamaica. I enjoyed singing these to Barbara, especially when I saw that she was feeling a little low. One, “Island In The Sun” I mentioned a little earlier in this section. You may have heard the other “Jamaican Farewell”. They are available on YouTube. I occasionally send these to Barbara on WhatsApp just to remind her of the old days.

Barbara met Mike Rogers while she was at the ROH and he was a post-grad student at the University of Birmingham. They married soon after we completed our physiotherapy education. They had two children and spent the larger part of their lives in England.

Mahin left Iran much later to live in the USA and is now in Canada. She first had an Iranian husband and then an Egyptian one. Three stepsons living also in Toronto look out for her. Lyda also married an Englishman, Lewin Harris, and settled down in England. She passed on a few years ago. Barbara, Mahin and I still communicate regularly.

We last met five years ago. Mahin and I spent two weeks with Barbara in her home in Surrey, just outside London. Spent most of the time reminiscing with Barbara driving us around the picturesque Surrey countryside. Together with memorable meals in several old English Pubs. Much to the amusement of the other two, I always went for the Fish and Chips.

Following up in St. Lucia

There was every reason to believe that within this brief period CBR (Community Based Rehabilitation) had been well-established in St. Lucia. The country had plans to expand this programme.

One was able to reach the conclusion that the Manual had been an effective tool used by disabled people, their families and the Community Health Assistants. CHAs with a basic training of three months for their Primary Health Care work could with a further training of at least 12 days in a workshop situation and a further three weeks of field training and with regular and adequate support from a higher level carry out their rehabilitation tasks with disabled people successfully. The availability of second level support enhanced quality and coverage.

The Community Health Nursing Service or CHNS, recognising the value of the inputs from the two physiotherapists from the Victoria Hospital, intended to request the Ministry of Health for one of these therapists to be released to the CHNS. The CHNS was continuing its dialogue with the education sector to promote the inclusion of disabled children in local schools. They had started a conversation with employers regarding job opportunities for disabled youth and adults. And an information campaign to increase public participation in what was now a programme and no more a project.

I left St. Lucia confident that disabled people here had hope for the future.

Marcella Niles

But I cannot leave St. Lucia before including Marcella Niles in my story. The Community Health Nursing Service was her responsibility. As my counterpart she went everywhere with me. In Castries she drove me around herself in her own car. To go out of Castries we had access to a larger vehicle from the CHNS but often driven by Miss Niles herself. Marcella Niles was very proud of her island and quite rightly so.

She guided me to the most beautiful parts of St. Lucia. She would, whenever she could, take me through the town of Soufriere so that I could see the Pitons. And she always pointed them out to me – Big Piton and Small Piton, two tall volcanic spurs rising straight up from the sea, adjoining the coast. They were linked by some sort of a ridge.

On a few occasions when we had time to spare, she took me to see tropical rain forests which St. Lucia is well-known for. We in Sri Lanka have our own famous rain forest Sinharaja, which is a World Heritage Site. But these in St. Lucia were somehow different. Maybe had I gone deeper into our Sinharaja I would have found a similarity. In addition to the giant ferns and lush greenery, it was very, very wet all the time – as if a very slight rain was constantly falling. It was surprising that one could also see scrub forests in some parts of this small island.

For my stay in St. Lucia Marcella had found me accommodation in an Apartment Hotel, quite common in the Caribbean. This suited me well. It had a pool which none of the other residents appeared to use. So I had it to myself every evening after work.

After relaxing in the water, I would walk to the little shop at the bend in the road, not far down from me. There I would find something to cook for myself to eat with rice for the evening meal. May be some mixed vegetables or some fish. Whatever it was, it was tasty, cooked with St. Lucian curry powder. And always a luscious mango to follow. However good that mango was, it could not touch our delicious Jaffna mangoes for taste.

A Meeting in Sri Lanka

Before I move on from this phase of my journey in South America and the Caribbean, there was a meeting I must stop for. It was one I was called upon to organise – the WHO Interregional Consultation on CBR held in Colombo in June 1982.

WHO Interregional Consultation on CBR, 1982

It was almost three years since we had started work in the field. We felt the time was ripe to get the people who have been testing the Manual together to share experiences. Einar suggested that I organise the meeting in Colombo. Sri Lanka had also been participating in the field trial.

I was extremely fortunate and overjoyed to welcome to my own country so many friends I had made on my travels to their countries. Dr. Hindley-Smith asked for my help to organise a tour to places of historical interest and to the game parks. Others toured independently after the meeting was over. My country was, after all, a tourist attraction. And although I say it myself – it is beautiful.

When I had been in Jamaica, it had reminded me much of my own country. So much so that I had this in my thoughts. If ever, if ever I had to leave my motherland for some reason or another, I would settle down in Jamaica. That too was beautiful, particularly the northwest where I was, away from the tourist hot spot of Montego Bay. Not just the beaches and scenery, but more importantly, its people.

During our meeting Einar and Gunnel were guests in our home. This was not just enjoyable but also useful to have more time to spend in discussion and planning the next steps. For our meeting, 22 participants came together from all parts of the globe. Countries that had carried out field tests were Botswana, Burma, India (Kerala State), Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, St. Lucia and Sri Lanka. There were also others who were invited as representatives of WHO, other UN organisations and NGOs and some as individuals.

After an exchange of experiences from these countries, they spent much time giving their suggestions in detail as to what revisions should be made in the WHO Manual. These were taken into account when the Manual was revised the following year. CBR had been born.

Back to Asia – Malaysia

My First Contact with Malaysia

The first time I went to Malaysia was in 1983 to represent WHO at the Seventh Asia & Pacific Conference of Rehabilitation International, known globally as RI. It was founded in 1922 as an organisation that led discussion on issues related to disability at a global level. The climax of its work was a World Congress held every four years. On my stopover in Mexico, I referred to Dr. Hindley-Smith telling me about his participation at the RI Congress in Ireland in 1969. It brought about the realisation in him of the extent of neglect of disabled people in developing countries.

At that Congress, RI was promoting new thinking on personnel required for rehabilitation. It was looking at disability as a charity-based concept. In the 1980s it was promoting interventions for people with disability to improve their quality of life in a social context. Then, early in this millennium when the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had been approved, their interest evolved to the promotion of disability rights.

Correspondingly, CBR had been accepted by the World Health Assembly. Increasingly now, more countries were adopting this approach both for policy and implementation. My own CBR story is about the small part I played travelling from country to country assisting them to start putting policy into practice. Just planting a seed as it were. How that seed would germinate and into what kind of tree it would grow was left to be seen. But germinate it did and by the time I got to Malaysia I was amazed at the way CBR was maturing.

It was blending with the particular ethos of each country to meet the needs of its disabled people.Seventh Asia & Pacific Conference of Rehabilitation International, Kuala Lumpur, 1983 RI (Rehabilitation International), the world body had some regional branches. Every two years RI organised a meeting in one of its regions. This first one I was invited to was in the Asia Pacific Region.

I was a speaker at a Plenary Session on the second day of the conference. The speaker before me was Dr. Siti Hasmah binti Haji Mohamad Ali, wife of the Prime Minister of Malaysia who we know as Mahathir Mohamed.

The topic of her presentation was a rather general one, focusing on the family as a vital provider of care. I had an opportunity of speaking with her in the break that followed the panel discussions. She told me her particular interest at that time was improvement in the situation of rural women.

That is why she had agreed to participate at this conference. She felt the discussion we had would help to promote her cause. I learned later that she and her husband had met at Medical School. They had been married soon after they left university.

I had been invited to present a paper on “CBR as a Relevant Approach for Developing Countries’. I included in the paper my thoughts on why a new approach was necessary with data from Sri Lanka. I also included a précis of the approach with examples, that WHO had adopted assisting countries to develop and of how it had impacted the quality of life of individuals and families; and a few results with statistical data from three countries – Botswana, Mexico and Sri Lanka, in three continents; and mention of its relationship to Primary Health Care, which at that time provided an entry point with the infrastructure.

My conclusions were that, “The results to date indicate emphatically that the approach is suited to the needs of developing countries… The quality of results cannot be questioned – for where better to provide freedom of mobility, create independence in daily life activities and enable disabled people to participate in the mainstream of community life than in the environment of their own communities?”

“The integration of disabled children in existing local schools and the provision of income generating opportunities within their own communities has ensured for disabled people full participation with true integration, starting with the family. It has done away with the need for them to be transported to a new and strange environment to be rehabilitated”.

Is CBR a Medical Model?

These results above are those that critics argued made CBR a “Medical Model” propagated by WHO. Some said this was because CBR was concerned also with functional independence. I say that maximal functional independence is an indication of an individual’s health status, beyond a medical condition. Improvement in the health of an individual is a human right. Besides, even an individual’s functional independence is not possible without social change in the community the individual lives in.

My own finding and therefore my argument was that participation in community life be it educational, functional or economic, cannot happen without a change in community attitudes. And with that an acceptance of disabled people on the basis of equality. An approach that was at this time being called “the Social Model”. CBR, based on the responsibility of the community, brought about a social change.

But I also saw CBR go beyond a purely social foundation; it also extended to enabling disabled people enjoy the same opportunities and responsibilities as others in their communities, an approach that is now called “the Human Rights Model”.

The world of disability did not use the words “human rights” at that time. But this was CBR’s needs-based approach, enabling equality in all matters including human rights. What is important is that CBR was not, for instance an individual-based, service-based approach reaching out from centres in districts or elsewhere. In these instances, responsibility lay with those centres, not with the communities in which disabled people lived.

Introducing CBR to Malaysia

It was against this background that the Government of Malaysia requested WHO cooperation to initiate CBR. In response, WHO sent me there for three months from February to May 1994. The mandate for matters related to disability lay with the Ministry of Social Welfare.

Initial discussions were with the Secretary of this Ministry. We talked about what he expected from me and about how I would set about the task he had set me. I said that WHO’s advice to countries was that the Manual, “Training in the Community for People with Disabilities”, be used as a tool for empowering disabled people and families with the knowledge and skills they required to start any change. I said without this tool for empowerment translated into Bahasa Malaysia CBR would be difficult for me to initiate in three months.

The Secretary called together ten members of his senior office staff. He removed the cord that held the different modules of the Manual together and separated the modules into ten lots. Giving one lot to each of his staff he said, “Could you please translate these and let me have them back by Monday?” Typed and photocopied, a sufficient number of Manuals were available to us when we required them. Such was the dynamism of this man who led the Ministry of Social Welfare at that time. I thought to myself, with this leadership anything should be possible.

So far, in other countries I had introduced CBR at the grass roots, promoting the development of a system upwards to support it. The structure for CBR was as yet incomplete in those countries, because appropriate mid-level personnel were lacking. This was a serious constraint for ensuring effectiveness as well as for sustainability.

Here in Malaysia for the first time, I was introducing CBR within a support system which had responsibility for disability – the Social Welfare Ministry. The Ministry had Social Welfare Assistants or SWAs at district level. To support them were Social Welfare Officers or SWOs at state level. Among them would be mid-level workers. They required relevant knowledge and skills in CBR. They required also to have this task included in their job descriptions. Then the focal points for a CBR system would be in place at the two support levels.

It would be up to officials at these levels to build the horizontal linkages within and outside government at each level that would together provide communities with the support they required. In development jargon this was called multi-sectoral collaboration. In reality, it sometimes worked in bits and pieces, often it did not. Much work was required here globally.

Local Accommodation

During the three months that I spent in Malaysia I was to work in Batu Rakit in the State of Terengganu on the east coast. Batu Rakit was a “Mukim” or sub district just over a half-hour drive from Kuala Terengganu, the capital of the state.

Our teaching area was rural. It was a quiet fishing village with the appearance of serenity and tranquillity. I was fortunate to be given accommodation here in a kind of rest house run by the state. This was a simple building set in a large property scattered with very tall coconut trees. There were a few rooms and some common bathrooms and toilets. The female participants from other states were accommodated in this rest house with me. Other participants found lodging in homes in the area. Evening meals to all were provided at the rest house. Because of this the group found much time to get to know each other and to talk about areas of common interest including work.

I liked very much the local food that was served. It was simple. “Nasi” means rice which is the staple in every meal. Here it was white rice served with Malaysian “curry”. Curries were in no way like ours, but this is what the dishes were called in English.

They were cooked with what we may call a raw curry powder – turmeric, coriander, cumin, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and ginger, with such condiments added in different proportions. As a result of these particular condiments, the taste was subtle quite unlike ours which tends to be spicy, even our white curries.

The rice was served with many different vegetables, and always fish from the village. My favourite Malaysian dish was nasi dagang. For special Malaysian dishes such as these, the rice is cooked in coconut milk, and it turns out rather like our milk rice or “kiributh”. Except that it is flavoured with pandan leaf or “rampe”.

The tastiest nasi dagang I had was served in the Hotel in Kuala Terengganu where I stayed for a few days before moving to Batu Rakit. It was served with fried sprats, shrimp sambol, a boiled egg and cucumber. What we eat as nasi lemak in Colombo or even the food in Kuala Lumpur is nothing like the Malaysian food I ate in Kuala Terengganu. There, food was very tasty with the subtle flavours of the food itself.

In Colombo I now eat Malaysian food with a rather spicy chicken curry, adapted to suit the local palate. In all my later visits to Kuala Lumpur staying in international hotels as I did, I was not able to find the original Malaysian food that I had enjoyed in the rest house in Batu Rakit.

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Features

Defend civic space upon which peace is built

Published

48 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

49 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

50 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.