Sri Lanka Calls for Global Support Following Cyclone Ditwah |
Sri Lanka’s Labor Minister and Deputy Finance Minister Dr. Anil Jayantha Fernando announced last week that the government would convene an international donor conference in January 2026. The conference will seek to mobilize foreign support for rebuilding the country after Cyclone Ditwah.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake recently described the cyclone as “the most challenging natural disaster” in recent history. Floods and landslides caused by Ditwah killed over 640 people and affected 2.3 million people. Close to 30,000 businesses have been affected. While there has not been an official estimate of the damage, it is believed that the cost of reconstruction could be between 3 and 7 percent of the GDP. This would be a strain, even for a healthy economy. For Sri Lanka, which is still recovering from a severe economic crisis, with GDP yet to return to pre-crisis levels, and under an IMF program, the cyclone has imposed a challenge it can’t shoulder alone.
The recently established “Rebuilding Sri Lanka Fund” received about 4.2 billion Sri Lankan rupees in donations (U.S.$13 million), demonstrating the limits of domestic resource mobilization. The realization prompted the government to call for an international donor conference, a practice followed by many developing countries following a natural disaster of this magnitude.
In........