Civil Society Governance Diagnostic Report on Sri Lanka: An Assessment of the Anti-Corruption Landscape of Sri Lanka

Abstract

This Civil Society Governance Diagnostic Report on the Anti-Corruption Landscape of Sri Lanka (Report), prepared on the basis of extensive local consultation over a two-month period with a range of community and sectoral representatives as well as experts in the key subject areas, focuses on the main governance determiners that have influenced the corruption context in Sri Lanka. It identifies crucial factors that need to be harnessed to facilitate and sustain anti-corruption measures necessary to ensure that Sri Lanka recovers successfully from its current financial crisis making the best use of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Extended Fund Facility (EFF). Based on this input and a study of best practice in similar situations, including the IMF’s own governance diagnostic recommendations recently made in comparable circumstances, the Report assesses progress made, identifies key weaknesses, and provides a list of measures deemed necessary to steer immediate and future reforms. The information used in preparing this report were of five types: they are; (a) national studies/ reports/summaries on core focus areas of the corruption landscape identified in the core group, the Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and through a snowball approach which led to other studies cited in the initial ones examined ;(b) relevant regional/comparative studies and analyses of similar issues and concerns; (c) the range of related legislation and documents concerned with them; (d) journalistic and more public-oriented pieces on the governance-corruption nexus; and (e) relevant IMF conceptual documents and country reports.