by Dr. K.L. Gunaratna

The captioned policy Statement was prepared at the instance of the Inter Academy Partnership (IAP) which is the apex body of science academies worldwide. The Statement was drafted by an international ‘Working Group’ of 18 subject experts drawn from 16 countries accross the globe. Those experts were selected by the IAP from nominees made by their affiliated Science Academies in the LMICs as well as a few from those in the most industrialized countries. That Group worked on-line for two years under the chairmanship of a Sri Lankan expert. In fact the subject had originally been proposed by him, forwarded by the Sri Lankan Science Academy and accepted by the IAP for serious consideration. The outcome of that effort – the draft Policy Statement – was circulated by the IAP to all affiliated Science Academies worldwide and formally endorsed by a required majority. It was then formally launched by the IAP at an international event held in Europe on the 5^th of October 2022.

The National Academy of Sciences Sri Lanka together with the Institute of Town Planners Sri Lanka hosted the local launch of this policy statement followed by a discussion on it. That event was held at the Auditorium of the Organization of Professional Association (OPA) on the 18^th of November 2022. Many interested professionals and scientists were present at that occasion.

Framing relevant policies for the LMICs requires a clear understanding of the urbanization process currently being experienced. Today, urbanization occurs almost exclusively in the LMICs. It can bring about positive dividends especially for women and longer lifespans for all, but these dividends are not guaranteed. When the process is mismanaged as often happens, it results in serious inequity, social unrest and the rapid growth of informal settlements. Thus, urbanization policies, urban planning and management are deemed to be very necessary. A reliable prediction is that by 2035 all the fastest growing cities worldwide will be in the LMICs.

A relevant statistical study concludes that urbanization in the LMICs:

· induces growth of the largest cities;

· occurs often without industrialization;

· is consequent to demographic explosion and poverty-induced rural-urban migration;

· encourages the growth of informal urban settlements; and,

· occurs more because of ‘rural push’ than ‘urban pull’.

This interminable ‘distress migration’ directed most often towards major cities results in diminishing the quality of life for all urban residents in those cities. Today, urban population increases happen in overcrowded and underserved informal settlements. These urban residents are part of an ‘informal city’, which functions independently from and in parallel with the formal city.

Cities in most LMICs, have some surprisingly common characteristics, which are:

· unequal access to all infrastructure, services and to decent housing;

· strong residential segregation;

· the existence of informal and often illegal systems of land occupation for housing;

· inadequate land-use management;

· the inability of most urban local authorities to deal with these complex issues;

· unsatisfactory housing units with very poor sanitary facilities;

· authoritarian political processes and inadequate social participation in planning decisions;

· large primate cities; and,

· limited autonomy and resources within urban local authorities and also poor vertical coordination on relevant national policies.

Urbanization in 19^th Century Europe happened in consequence of industrialization and therefore created economic growth in those countries. The current experience of urbanization in the LMICs invariably happens without industrialization. Therefore the IAP Statement concludes that urbanization in the LMICs is not always a beneficial process. This is an important conclusion for us in Sri Lanka to recognize. Indeed, it also has the adversity of continuing to increase sub-standard urban living conditions in unhealthy slums which often defy well-meant efforts for improvement.

It is very significant that this new IAP Policy Statement has not only been accepted by most Science Academies in the LMICs. It has also been carefully scrutinized and accepted by most learned Western academics and their Science Academies. These Science Academies include those in the US, Germany and many others in Europe including the Royal Society in England.

In Sri Lanka, following some level of independence won in 1931 with the Donomough Constitution, our prime indigenous political concerns focused on Agriculture for domestic food production and on Education. That was because these two areas came under the purview of two far-seeing Sri Lankan politicians (Senanayake & Kannangara). The important results were a gradual move towards food self-sufficiency; and, mass-scale free education. Thus the new emphases then was on:

· rural development;

· rebuilding of our abandoned ancient reservoirs in the Dry Zone

; and,

· the settlement of land-hungry Wet Zone farmers in the newly irrigated lands in the Dry Zone.

After formal ‘Independence’ in 1948, these national priorities continued but also included not only irrigated agriculture but also an increased emphasis on hydro-electric power generation projects. The last followed the pioneering work of Engineer Wimalasurendra. The concern for multi-purpose irrigation and hydroelectric power projects was also inspired by the successful work of the American Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Thus the Gal Oya, Walawe Ganga, and finally the Mahaweli Project came into being in stages.

Consequently, one important difference between our progress and that of many other LMICs was that we, until relatively recent decades, focused on rural upliftment often in preference to urban development. That is why the implementation of Patrick Abercrombie’s plans for Colombo were overlooked in fovor of the Gal Oya Project and implementation of the later Colombo Master Plan Project prepared by a massive UNDP team was superseded and implementation was focussed upon by the Accelerated Mahaweli Master Plan Project. We therefore had much less urbanization then, than most other LMICs. This situation began to change negatively only in more recent decades.

Our Planning Profession and the Current Serious National Concerns

There are specialized disciplines with highly qualified and experienced professionals in Sri Lanka, who are able to deal with many of the areas of serious national concern that confront us today. A few (but not all) of these areas, are:

· the ailing Agricultural Sector;

· the Human-Elephant Conflict;

· the impacts of Climate Change including recurrent floods, droughts & landslides;

· the vulnerability of coastal population concentrations to likely sea-level rise;

· the ailing Construction Sector;

· the future of our cities;

· the Port City Project; and,

· the extraordinarily high National Debt.

The profession I am representing in writing this article is commonly referred to in Sri Lanka by the old British terminology as “Town and Country Planning“. ‘Country Planning’ in modern parlance includes both ‘Regional and Rural Settlement Planning’. While we in our profession have no special expertise in Agriculture and Agro-Pedology, the Agricultural sector and the following three listed areas of concerns, clearly need Regional and Rural Settlement Planning.

The Future of our cities

There has been much concern with plans for Colombo. We clearly need much better public transport, safer streets and sidewalks, in-situ slum-upgrading and much more planned, environmentally friendly building and progress in Colombo, its suburbs and also in many of our other cities. However, Colombo and a few mid-sized towns also have growing unhygienic slums and shanties. Improving the living conditions of these underserved communities is indeed beneficial. However, long term solutions are needed. Theses solutions are clearly not the building of multistoried flats in the suburbs, which merely transfers blight from the city to its suburbs.

The planned development of small towns including those in the Dry Zone is very important. There must be provision within these towns of upgraded agricultural and social infrastructure including secondary schools and small hospitals. these will facilitate access to folk in their respective rural hinterlands. Only such provisions will help in reducing rural migrations to Colombo and mid-sized cities.

The Port City Project

Some Sri Lankans seem bent on criticizing the Port City Project. We as a profession must see the Project now as one that could fast becoming a reality. We should do whatever we can to make it a success. There is no doubt that it can generate a great deal of much needed foreign exchange.It will also trigger some urbanization. But, that urbanization is most likely to be indirect and benign. It can greatly help our ailing Construction Sector, which is now in dire financial straits. It can also reduce out-migration of construction professionals and skilled construction labor. It can offset our high national debt.

The High National Debt

Clearly, this last identified national concern urgently requires the expertise of our Economists, more than that of any other profession. But, there is also a role that we as Planners can play.t may be recalled that by ‘accelerating’ development work on the Mahaweli Project in the late 1970s, completion of the very costly ‘headworks’ with hydropower generation capacity were achieved early. That achievement was at much lower cost than if these large and very expensive works were left to be built later. Accelerating the Mahaweli Project with early borrowings of foreign exchange has indeed greatly benefited us in many ways. One of these benefits is that it has already provided and will continue to provide us with more clean energy from hydro-electric power, for the present and also the future, at a much lower cost than otherwise. With that ‘acceleration’, some of the agriculture and human settlement components on the Mahaweli Systems ‘H’ and ‘C’ were also substantially completed.

The Maduru Oya Dam in ‘System B’ was the last main ‘headworks’ to be realized under the Accelerated Program. It was built by a Canadian company (FAFJ) with funds from their government. A small extent of settlement work in ‘System B,’ including the planning of a few small towns was begun earlier by the Mahaweli Development Board. But, the main irrigation and rural settlement planning work on this ‘Downstream’ development aspect of the Maduru Oya Left Bank was entrusted to a consortium of two US consultancy firms (Berger & IECO) with funding by USAID. Those two firms worked in very close collaboration with Sri Lankan professional expertise.

This latter important work ended abruptly with much of our efforts still on the drawing boards. The reason for the sudden stoppage was due to the resumption of armed hostilities by the LTTE against the GOSL. Apparently, the LTTE’s perception then was that the ongoing project would result in non-Tamil citizens being settled in areas the LTTE considered as their ‘Tamil Homeland’. This perception seemed to have been successfully canvassed by them with the government of Canada and possibly also with the US Government.

As far as I know, the settler selection policy in the Northern parts of the System ‘B’ area, had not been clearly defined at that time by the GOSL. Tragically, this important downstream work on ‘System B’ of the Accelerated Mahaweli Project, which could also have benefitted some parts of the North was aborted and came to a sudden halt.

It would now seem appropriate,

in the current context of the extraordinarily high National Debt, for the GOSL to put together a competent professional team of relevant local expertise to do some preliminary work on this aspect of the Project. The required expertise should not only be in Irrigation Engineering but importantly, also in the professional areas of Agro-based Regional and Rural Settlement Planning. The starting point should be the last competent feasibility study done by the Consultants. It was entitled ‘Land Use and Settlement Planning for Two Sample Areas of the System ‘B’ Irrigation Project’ and dated August 1982. The two sample areas in this said study had been identified on the basis of a thorough Agro-Pedology study of the Project Area. They represented the two predominant soil types relevant to planned agriculture in that area.

Further work on Settlement Planning in this effort would also require the

definition of a rational and fair settler selection policy in this under-populated region. It will also require much external funding to restart and continue work on the remaining downstream areas of ‘System B’. In this time of need, receiving international funding for this abruptly halted Mahaweli Project work, would surely be beneficial to us in every way. We could even seriously consider proceeding to complete, in due course, the remaining stages of the Project as set out in our original Mahaweli Master Plan.

K.Locana Gunaratna
AA Dipl (London), MCP (Harvard), PhD (Colombo);
Fellow & Past President, National Academy of Sciences Sri Lanka;
Past General President. Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science;
Fellow & Past President, Institute of Town Planners Sri Lanka;
Fellow & Past President, Sri Lanka Institute of Architects;
Vice President, Sri Lanka Economic Association.