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Morning Star of Nursing Education in Sri Lanka

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Chandra

Chandra de Silva, 20th Death Anniversary

After a convulsive struggle for national liberation from British colonialism which tore the subcontinent apart, India gained its independence in 1947. Way ahead of Ceylon, on the cusp of this momentous event, it established a degree-awarding College of Nursing at the University of Delhi in 1946, a committee having visited and considered the best practices in nursing education in Canada, the USA, England and Scotland. It then carefully designed a course to meet the needs of India’s social and health requirements, and admitted its first batch of 13 students in July 1946, for a four-year BSc (Honors) degree in Nursing.

Soon after, they offered this advantage through a competitive interview to students from Ceylon.

In 1950, the year India adopted its first Republican Constitution, Chandra Samarasinghe was one of the three persons admitted to this course, and would go on to be the one who eventually introduced university education for Sri Lankan nurses in 1992, after a lifetime of campaigning.

When Chandra de Silva (nee Samarasinghe), much loved and respected by her students and colleagues alike, passed away 20 years ago on 28th January 2006, a former student wrote a moving tribute to her titled “The Morning Star of the World of Nursing Has Faded…” on the front page of the February 2006 issue of the magazine New Vision, a publication of the Graduate Nurses’ Foundation of Sri Lanka.

Describing Chandra as “the Nightingale of Sri Lanka”, a “most noble lady (Athi uththama kanthawa) filled with compassion”, “born for the good fortune of the nation” and “incomparable teacher-mother (guru mathawa) of hundreds of thousands of students”, the writer, Malini Ranasinghe, who was the President of the Graduate Nurses Foundation, confesses it is beyond her to set down in full Chandra’s life-long service of over 50 years to the profession. The magazine New Vision itself was one of Chandra’s many initiatives as was the encouragement for the Nursing Profession to obtain membership of the Sri Lanka Association of Professionals. Malini Ranasinghe promises in this heartfelt farewell, that Chandra’s legacy would be passed down the ages to each new batch of nursing students, to remain in their hearts through the course on the History of Nursing.

Chandra was Sri Lanka’s first Chief Nursing Education Officer (CNEO, now titled Director Nursing) at the Ministry of Health. She took up the pioneering role in 1967, having returned from Boston University, USA, after completing a Master’s degree in Education and Administration.

In her first year in the role, Chandra presented a comprehensive memorandum drawing the attention of the government of the day to the country’s need for a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing. She was the first to do so. It took decades before this dream came true, with Chandra having made several more proposals many years apart, before she was invited by a Canadian University in collaboration with the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) to help set up the degree course in Nursing in 1992. Having spent most of her professional life in a battle to uplift the nursing profession in Sri Lanka to international standards, she was setting exam papers at the OUSL the day before she was admitted to hospital for kidney surgery, and passed away at the recovery unit. By then, she had seen not only several batches of undergraduate nurses don their robes, but also graduate nurses earn Master’s degrees with a PhD programme well on its way to being implemented.

When Delhi Built Bridges

It all started when three young ladies boarded a train with their Thomas Cooks travel documents, to Delhi in July 1950, having competed and won places at Delhi University to follow a BSc Honours degree, majoring in Nursing. Chandra Samarasinghe from Mahamaya College Kandy, dressed in a Kandyan Saree, Trixie Marthenesz from Ladies College and later Ananda College Colombo, and Shireen Packeer, also from Ananda College Colombo, in dresses, were the lucky ones selected, and became firm friends known as the “The Trio from Ceylon” at their university in India. They had “luxury accommodation” at their residential university campus at number 12, Jaswant Singh Road, New Delhi, and travelled everywhere on their bikes.

They had a blast during their four years there, not only completing their degrees but also able to experience the newly independent nation in transition, already forging a future for itself. Chandra continued to wear the Kandyan saree throughout her stay there, and when she had to introduce herself to the rest of the students, said “I am Chandra Samarasinghe from Kandy, in Lanka”, leaving a puzzled Trixie wondering why she didn’t say Ceylon.  When they left the university after four years, the Principal, Dr. Margeretta Craig, O.B.E. told them “You three Ceylonese girls have been live wires!” They got on well with the staff including the Vice Principal Dr. Edith Buchanan, a Canadian from the Canadian Faculty of Nursing, who had an interesting experience with Chandra at their first encounter. When asked to explain the meaning of the term “prone position”, Chandra, always the first to offer an answer, piped up to say somewhat indelicately, “That’s the one with the backside up!” to giggles from the class. She was soon persuaded that “face-down” was a much more decorous way of saying it.

They sang and danced in the presence of Lady Edwina Mountbatten who graced the university’s annual concerts and had their names appear approvingly in the Indian newspaper report of the event. They were invited to Rashtrapati Bhavan in 1951 where they met India’s iconic first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first President. They made friends with J. Wijetunga, author of ‘Grass for my Feet’ fame who lived only a short distance away from their hostel, who gave them free access to his pantry and taught them the cultural history of India and also of Sri Lanka. They travelled to places of interest including a long-desired visit to Shanthi Nikethan, having developed a love for Rabindranath Tagore’s work, and took photos in front of the Taj Mahal.

When they first arrived in Delhi, they were thrilled to meet another Sri Lankan student in the senior year who had known them from Ceylon, Viola Perera. Viola introduced them to her friends, one of whom on obtaining her PhD became the Principal of the College of Nursing, University of Delhi.

It was clear that their time at Delhi University left a deep impression on the girls. They were being trained to take over from the departing British, and to maintain the required standards as well as to develop them further.  The sense of patriotic duty they saw in India made an impression on them. They also had plenty of fun, and Chandra was able to keep Ceylon’s end up when the beautiful Bengali voices of Indian students sang at their gatherings, having herself been voice-trained by Saranagupta Amarasinghe, and according to Trixie Marthenesz’s reminiscences in her book, ‘Those Delhi Days”, also by Ananda Samarakoon (p143).

A Worthy Battle Waged

Back in Ceylon, Chandra tried many times to introduce the educational opportunities she herself had obtained, to others in her profession. And yet, unlike India at Independence, Ceylon and later even Sri Lanka, was not ready to accept such progress easily. With the Health Ministry decision makers being male and mostly doctors, they ignorantly regarded the role of the nurse as a minor one, needing just “a pair of hands”. It may have involved some insecurity which masqueraded as good sense, at the cost to the country for many decades. As CNEO, Chandra battled through it all, rewriting the curriculum to bring it up to international standards, doing what she could to send Nurses overseas for training. And she kept presenting proposals for a BSc programme, which fell on deaf ears. Decades later, she was rewarded for her unwavering commitment to the cause when she was asked to start the BSc Nursing programme at the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL), which is now a great asset to the country, with other universities also offering it.

In 2004, two years before she passed away, the first publication of New Vision by the Graduate Nurses Foundation of Sri Lanka was presented to her. In the 2005 issue, they reproduced on the front page her keynote address at their AGM on the 31st of October 2004, at which she was Chief Guest.

Her speech recounts the painfully hard journey that the profession (and she herself) had to endure to raise it to its current status. Chandra recalls with sadness that the three-year Nursing Diploma did not entitle Sri Lankan nurses to pursue higher education, qualifying them only to follow a few courses at the Post Basic School of Nursing:

“I had to fight a very hard battle to keep the 3 year programme intact because there was a very serious effort to downgrade the three year programme to two years, a step that would have prevented our nurses from obtaining any acceptance and recognition in a foreign country. There was intense official and political pressure for a long time to effect this change but with the assistance of a few other Nursing Leaders this retrograde step was suppressed, perhaps forever. Such dangers can arise in the future too. The price we nurses have to pay, is eternal vigilance to challenge and suppress any effort to downgrade the standard of Nursing Education in Sri Lanka.”

She happily announced that at that stage, there were 200 BSc graduates and 25 who had obtained their Master’s degree, with two heading for their PhD. She defined the lack of access to higher education for nurses as a “human right denied”. She also declared that for the first time, there was agreement across all nursing services to propose a nursing degree at conventional universities, disclosing that this was the “first time such consensus has manifested in the Nursing Services”. She called upon nurses to retain this unity “at whatever cost” and just as in other professions such an engineering, law, medicine, “it was time to rectify this anomaly” and “work together to achieve this new dimension in Nursing Education.”

A Mother to More Than Her Own

As I write this memorial to honour my mother Chandra for her life of service and unwavering dedication to provide for others the education she herself received at two of the best universities in the world (Delhi and Boston), her determination and grace under pressure, I know why I have focused on her professional life rather than her personal one. It is because I grew up sensing that she was truly a mother to a larger family, of nursing students and professionals she was responsible for. She never turned away any of them coming over to her home for special help with their dissertation topics or applications for scholarships. She encouraged the senior nursing staff to follow the degree course and helped them complete it when they were discouraged. Some who recognized me at the counters in private hospitals came up to declare their gratitude to her for this specific gesture of help, because their employment prospects had expanded greatly with that.

Though infinitely patient, graceful and ladylike, my mother was a fighter. I saw how she never gave up on her ambitions for her profession, although she was hardly ambitious for herself. I saw her pain, and her determination to fight on in a hostile environment of male dominated bureaucracy.

I am eternally grateful to Aunty Trixie (Trixie Marthenesz, her fellow student at Delhi Uni) for writing a delightful little booklet called “Those Delhi Days” (Tharanjee Prints, Maharagama, 2009), recounting their time from 1950 to 1954 at the University of Delhi, with wonderful photographs of their 4-year journey as undergraduates, including at the annual concert in creative costumes and also on their holidays around India. An especially charming photo on the first page is the one on Convocation Day 1954, which shows Chandra, Trixie and Shareen together with a few of their batch mates wearing their robes with the distinctive Delhi Uni Cap. The book recalls in such delicious detail their time during such an exciting period in India, just two years after Independence from the British. I found some of the facts for this article from that book. Aunty Trixie, whom my mother drew in, together with Aunty Viola (Viola Perera, the senior student at Delhi University) talking them both out of retirement to begin the work of setting up a new department of Nursing at the Open University, writes in her book, of the young student Chandra who screamed at witnessing the death of their first patient in a hospital in India, bringing “half the ward to the scene”, but who then turned into “a leader among professional nurses in Sri Lanka” which appellation Trixie says “befitted her”.

I see that others have now taken the profession to new heights. Her students are now the warriors at the forefront of the battle for even further professional and pedagogical development. She would be proud. I like to believe that she was as much a guiding light as a Morning Star, softly glowing in the memories of those who knew her, inspiring them to never give up, and to do things with grace. That’s why I share these memories of my exceptional, beloved mother with all those nurses who have known her personally, her colleagues, lecturers and students in white who lined the path throwing jasmine blossoms at the vehicle taking her on her final journey through Kanatte, Colombo’s the main cemetery, and those who have and will come to know her, and the contribution she made to their profession, through the History of Nursing in Sri Lanka.

By Sanja de Silva Jayatilleka


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Opinion

Sri Lanka has policy, but where is the data?

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2026/03/31

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In recent months, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has repeatedly expressed a concern that the government does not have the accurate data it needs to make good decisions.

At meetings with senior officials from ministries ranging from health and agriculture to education and infrastructure, the President has reportedly lamented that the government often lacks reliable information on what its projects are achieving, how funds are being spent, and whether public investments are producing results. The meeting on December 6th at the Matale District Secretariat was a case in point. The President emphasised the need for most accurate data to award compensation for damaged agricultural lands before the month’s end. He recalled that the Department of Agriculture’s data showed an excess of rice in the country, but the nation has faced a rice shortage.

For a country attempting economic recovery after the most severe crisis in its post-independence history, absence of accurate data is a dangerous position to be in.

Without data, decisions become guesswork. Without evidence, policy becomes speculation.

Ironically, Sri Lanka already possesses the policy architecture required to solve this problem. The National Evaluation Policy (2018) and the National Evaluation Policy Implementation Framework (2023) were created precisely to ensure that public spending is guided by evidence, results, and accountability. Yet today, despite these policies and the presence of a dedicated government agency tasked with monitoring development projects, the country still lacks the integrated digital monitoring and evaluation system needed to turn policy into practice. Until that gap is closed, Sri Lanka will continue to struggle with inefficient public investment, delayed projects, and policy decisions made without reliable evidence.

The scale of the problem

The Department of Project Management and Monitoring (DPMM), operating under the Ministry of Finance, is the central institution responsible for overseeing development projects implemented by government ministries. According to its 2024 Annual Performance Report, the department monitored 226 large-scale development projects across various ministries during the year. These projects collectively had an allocated budget of LKR 705 billion, but the actual expenditure amounted to only LKR 401.96 billion, representing about 56.9% utilization of the allocated funds.

In other words, nearly half of the planned development spending did not materialize.

While fiscal constraints and external factors contributed to this outcome, the data nevertheless highlights a deeper systemic issue: weak monitoring and decision-making structures that fail to identify and resolve implementation problems early.

The report also indicates that many projects face delays due to procurement issues, coordination failures, cost escalations, and operational bottlenecks. What makes the situation more troubling is that information about these problems is often fragmented and slow to reach decision-makers.

The government does monitor projects through reports and field visits, but the information flow remains largely manual and scattered across ministries. In the digital age, such a system is simply inadequate.

A policy that already foresaw the solution

Sri Lanka’s National Evaluation Policy (NEP), approved by the Cabinet in 2018, recognised this problem years ago. The policy aims to ensure that public investment decisions are guided by reliable evidence, efficiency, and measurable development results.

The NEP outlines several key goals:

· strengthening evidence-based decision making,

· improving efficiency in resource utilisation,

· ensuring transparency and accountability in public expenditure,

· promoting learning from successes and failures of past projects, and

· creating a national culture of evaluation.

To operationalise the policy, the government introduced the National Evaluation Policy Implementation Framework (NEPIF) in 2023. This framework explicitly calls for the creation of integrated information systems capable of gathering and analyzing data across the project cycle—from planning and budgeting to implementation and evaluation. In fact, NEPIF specifically proposes the establishment of a web-based integrated public investment management and evaluation information system to store project data and evaluation reports.

Such a system would allow decision-makers to access reliable information quickly, improving accountability and policy planning. Unfortunately, despite the clarity of this vision, the digital infrastructure necessary to implement it at a national scale is still largely absent.

A revealing moment at a Colombo seminar

The urgency of this gap became strikingly clear at a recent seminar in Colombo organized by a national NGO. The organization demonstrated its cloud-based monitoring and evaluation system which was comprehensive and updated by multiple layers of personnel, to a group of university students. On a large screen, a dashboard displayed real-time information on the organization’s twenty development projects across the country. Each project appeared as a branch of a digital tree, connected to activities, budgets, locations, and beneficiaries. With a few clicks, staff could generate reports showing the status of any project at national, district, or local levels, both of data and graphics. Updated data was available up to the previous day.

What would normally take weeks of manual compilation could be done in less than a minute.

Among the audience was a university academic who observed something obvious but powerful. ‘If a small NGO can run a system like this,’ he asked, ‘why can’t the Government?’ Another participant responded and told that the non-introduction of a digitalized Monitoring and Evaluation mechanism was due to some bureaucrats’ resistance. ‘I heard the Evaluation Reports of several projects of the government was not published because the respective Project Managers had opposed, fearing their failure would be exposed’, another academic commented. Those comments deserve serious reflection on the situation, I believe.

The digital revolution in monitoring and evaluation

Around the world, governments are increasingly adopting digital monitoring and evaluation platforms to track public investments in real time. These systems combine several elements:

· project databases

· geospatial mapping

· financial monitoring tools

· citizen feedback mechanisms

· performance dashboards for decision-makers.

Countries such as Estonia, South Korea, Rwanda, and Chile have integrated such systems into national governance structures. In these systems, ministers and senior officials can see instantly:

· which projects are progressing

· which projects are delayed

· how funds are being spent

· whether outputs and outcomes are being achieved.

More importantly, such platforms enable early intervention. Problems can be identified before they become crises. For Sri Lanka, which must now manage scarce fiscal resources with extreme care, such tools are no longer optional luxuries.

They are necessities.

The cost of not knowing

The absence of integrated data systems carries real economic consequences. Public investment decisions affect everything from roads and irrigation schemes to hospitals and schools. When these investments fail or underperform, the cost is not merely financial. It affects the daily lives of citizens.

A hospital without doctors. An irrigation scheme without water. A school building without teachers.

These are not simply implementation failures; they are information failures.

Without reliable monitoring systems, governments often learn about problems too late. By the time corrective action is taken, budgets have been spent and opportunities lost.

The NEPIF recognises precisely this challenge. It emphasises that evaluation should be an integral part of the entire development cycle—from project design to implementation and feedback for future planning.

But such evaluation cannot occur without reliable data systems.

Building an evaluation culture

Another important goal of the National Evaluation Policy is to create a culture of evaluation within the public sector. This requires a shift in mindset. Evaluation should not be seen as a fault-finding exercise. Instead, it should function as a learning mechanism that helps improve policy design and implementation.

The NEPIF stresses that evaluation findings should inform planning, budgeting, and future project selection. However, without systematic information systems, evaluation results often remain scattered across reports that few decision-makers read. Digital platforms can transform this situation by making information visible, accessible, and actionable. They turn data into knowledge. And knowledge into better decisions.

What a national digital system could look like

Sri Lanka does not need to start from scratch. The institutional building blocks already exist:

· the Department of Project Management and Monitoring (DPPM)

· the National Evaluation Policy

· the National Evaluation Policy Implementation Framework

· various sector-specific monitoring systems across ministries.

What is missing is integration.

A national digital monitoring and evaluation platform could include:

1. A centralised project database:

All government development projects recorded with budgets, timelines, outputs, and implementing agencies.

2. Real-time progress dashboards:

Accessible to the President, Cabinet, ministry secretaries, and provincial administrators.

3. Geographic mapping:

Showing where projects are located and how they benefit communities.

4. Automated reporting:

Reducing paperwork and enabling faster decision-making.

5. Citizen transparency portals:

Allowing the public to see how public funds are used.

Such a system would dramatically strengthen transparency, accountability, and efficiency.

The opportunity before Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka today has a rare opportunity. Economic crises often force governments to rethink outdated systems. The country cannot afford inefficient public investments any longer. Every rupee spent must produce measurable results. The National Evaluation Policy and its implementation framework already provide the intellectual foundation for this transformation. What remains is political commitment. A bold decision to build the digital infrastructure of evidence-based governance.

A call to action

The President’s concern about the lack of reliable data in government is both accurate and urgent. But the solution does not require new policies. The policies already exist. What Sri Lanka needs now is implementation. A national digital monitoring and evaluation system would give policymakers something they currently lack: a clear, real-time picture of the country’s development efforts. Such a system would empower leaders to identify problems early, allocate resources wisely, save billions of rupees from wasting and ensure that development projects truly benefit citizens.

In short, it would give Sri Lanka what every modern state needs: a digital nervous system connecting policy, data, and decision-making. The question is no longer whether the country needs such a system.

The question is simply this: how soon Sri Lanka is willing to build it.

by Tilak W. Karunaratne

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Opinion

Tribute to a distinguished BOI leader

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2026/03/29

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Mr. Tuli Cooray, former Deputy Director General of the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BOI) and former Secretary General of the Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), passed away three months ago, leaving a distinguished legacy of public service and dedication to national economic development.

An alumnus of the University of Colombo, Mr. Cooray graduated with a Special Degree in Economics. He began his career as a Planning Officer at the Ministry of Plan Implementation and later served as an Assistant Director in the Ministry of Finance (Planning Division).

He subsequently joined the Greater Colombo Economic Commission (GCEC), where he rose from Manager to Senior Manager and later Director. During this period, he also served at the Treasury as an Assistant Director. With the transformation of the GCEC into the BOI, he was appointed Executive Director of the Investment Department and later elevated to the position of Deputy Director General.

In recognition of his vast experience and expertise, he was appointed Director General of the Budget Implementation and Policy Coordination Division at the Ministry of Finance and Planning. Following his retirement from government service, he continued to contribute to the national economy through his work with JAAF.

Mr. Cooray was widely respected as a seasoned professional with exceptional expertise in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) and facilitating investor relations. His commitment, leadership, and humane qualities earned him the admiration and affection of colleagues across institutions.

He was also one of the pioneers of the BOI Past Officers’ Association, and his passing is deeply felt by its members. His demise has created a void that is difficult to fill, particularly within the BOI, where his contributions remain invaluable.

Mr. Cooray will be remembered not only for his professional excellence but also for his integrity, humility, and the lasting impact he made on those who had the privilege of working with him.

The BOI Past Officers’ Association

jagathcds@gmail.com

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Opinion

When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers

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2026/03/27

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“As a small and open country, Singapore will always be vulnerable to what happens around us. As Lee Kuan Yew used to say: “when elephants fight, the grass suffers, but when elephants make love, the grass also suffers“. Therefore, we must be aware of what is happening around us, and prepare ourselves for changes and surprises.” – Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, during the debate on the President’s Address in Singapore Parliament on 16 May, 2018, commenting on the uncertain external environment during the first Trump Administration.

“When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers”

is a well-known African proverb commonly used in geopolitics to describe smaller nations caught in the crossfire of conflicts between major powers. At the 1981 Commonwealth conference, when Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere quoted this Swahili proverb, the Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew famously retorted, “When elephants make love, the grass suffers, too”. In other words, not only when big powers (such as the US, Russia, EU, China or India) clash, the surrounding “grass” (smaller nations) get “trampled” or suffer collateral damage but even when big powers collaborate or enter into friendly agreements, small nations can still be disadvantaged through unintended consequences of those deals. Since then, Singaporean leaders have often quoted this proverb to highlight the broader reality for smaller states, during great power rivalry and from their alliances. They did this to underline the need to prepare Singapore for challenges stemming from the uncertain external environment and to maintain high resilience against global crises.

Like Singapore, as a small and open country, Sri Lanka too is always vulnerable to what happens around us. Hence, we must be alert to what is happening around us, and be ready not only to face challenges but to explore opportunities.

When Elephants Fight

To begin with, President Trump’s “Operation Epic Fury”.

Did we prepare adequately for changes and surprises that could arise from the deteriorating situation in the Gulf region? For example, the impact the conflict has on the safety and welfare of Sri Lankans living in West Asia or on our petroleum and LNG imports. The situation in the Gulf remains fluid with potential for further escalation, with the possibility of a long-term conflict.

The region, which is the GCC, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Syria and Azerbaijan (I believe exports to Azerbaijan are through Iran), accounts for slightly over $1 billion of our exports. The region is one of the most important markets for tea (US$546 million out of US$1,408 million in 2024. According to some estimates, this could even be higher). As we export mostly low-grown teas to these countries, the impact of the conflict on low-grown tea producers, who are mainly smallholders, would be extremely strong. Then there are other sectors like fruits and vegetables where the impact would be immediate, unless of course exporters manage to divert these perishable products to other markets. If the conflict continues for a few more weeks or months, managing these challenges will be a difficult task for the nation, not simply for the government. It is also necessary to remember the Russia – Ukraine war, now on to its fifth year, and its impact on Sri Lanka’s economy.

Mother of all bad timing

What is more unfortunate is that the Gulf conflict is occurring on top of an already intensifying global trade war. One observer called it the “mother of all bad timing”. The combination is deadly.

Early last year, when President Trump announced his intention to weaponise tariffs and use them as bargaining tools for his geopolitical goals, most observers anticipated that he would mainly use tariffs to limit imports from the countries with which the United States had large trade deficits: China, Mexico, Vietnam, the European Union, Japan and Canada. The main elephants, who export to the United States. But when reciprocal tariffs were declared on 2nd April, some of the highest reciprocal tariffs were on Saint Pierre and Miquelon (50%), a French territory off Canada with a population of 6000 people, and Lesotho (50%), one of the poorest countries in Southern Africa. Sri Lanka was hit with a 44% reciprocal tariff. In dollar terms, Sri Lanka’s goods trade deficit with the United States was very small (US$ 2.9 billion in 2025) when compared to those of China (US$ 295 billion in 2024) or Vietnam (US$ 123 billion in 2024).

Though the adverse impact of US additional ad valorem duty has substantially reduced due to the recent US Supreme Court decision on reciprocal tariffs, the turbulence in the US market would continue for the foreseeable future. The United States of America is the largest market for Sri Lanka and accounts for nearly 25% of our exports. Yet, Sri Lanka’s exports to the United States had remained almost stagnant (around the US $ 3 billion range) during the last ten years, due to the dilution of the competitive advantage of some of our main export products in that market. The continued instability in our largest market, where Sri Lanka is not very competitive, doesn’t bode well for Sri Lanka’s economy.

When Elephants Make Love

In rapidly shifting geopolitical environments, countries use proactive anticipatory diplomacy to minimise the adverse implications from possible disruptions and conflicts. Recently concluded Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations between India and the EU (January 2026) and India and the UK (May 2025) are very good examples for such proactive diplomacy. These negotiations were formally launched in June 2007 and were on the back burner for many years. These were expedited as strategic responses to growing U.S. protectionism. Implementation of these agreements would commence during this year.

When negotiations for a free trade agreement between India and the European Union (which included the United Kingdom) were formally launched, anticipating far-reaching consequences of such an agreement on other developing countries, the Commonwealth Secretariat requested the University of Sussex to undertake a study on a possible implication of such an agreement on other low-income developing countries. The authors of that study had considered the impact of an EU–India Free Trade Agreement on the trade of excluded countries and had underlined, “The SAARC countries are, by a long way, the most vulnerable to negative impacts from the FTA. Their exports are more similar to India’s…. Bangladesh is most exposed in the EU market, followed by Pakistan and Sri Lanka.”

So, now these agreements are finalised; what will be the implications of these FTAs between India and the UK and the EU on Sri Lanka? According to available information, the FTA will be a game-changer for the Indian apparel exporters, as it would provide a nearly ten per cent tariff advantage to them. That would level the playing field for India, vis-à-vis their regional competitors. As a result, apparel exports from India to the UK and the EU are projected to increase significantly by 2030. As the sizes of the EU’s and the UK’s apparel markets are not going to expand proportionately, these growths need to come from the market shares of other main exporters like Sri Lanka.

So, “also, when elephants make love, the grass suffers.”

Impact on Sri Lanka

As a small, export dependent country with limited product and market diversification, Sri Lanka will always be vulnerable to what happens in our main markets. Therefore, we must be aware of what is happening in those markets, and prepare ourselves to face the challenges proactively. Today, amid intense geopolitical conflicts, tensions and tariff shifts, countries adopt high agility and strategic planning. If we look at what our neighbours have been doing in London, Brussels and Tokyo, we can learn some lessons on how to navigate through these turbulences.

(The writer is a retired public servant and can be reached at senadhiragomi@gmail.com)

by Gomi Senadhira

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