The Post War Winners: Urban rich or the rural poor? = පශ්චාත් යුධ සමයේ ජයග්‍රාහකයෝ : නාගරික ධනවතුන් ද? ග්‍රාමීය දුප්පතුන්ද?

Abstract

In the post-war years, the UPFA government has professed a commitment to rural development. For example, UPFA’s “Mahinda Chinthana” Development Policy Framework” explicitly recognises the problem of rising inequality and the importance of reducing it. It is a rural centered development framework, quite in contrast to the “Regaining Sri Lanka” framework of the previous UNP government. Successive budget speeches of the UPFA have reiterated the government’s commitment to increase the income of the poor and the rural areas at a faster pace than in previous decades, and a number of strategies have been introduced. However, this Insight uses data from the National Household and Expenditure Survey for years available from 2002 to 2013 to show that the Mahinda Chinthanaya vision for rural and estate sector income growth was in fact more alive before the vision was announced, than after; the rural and estate sector were growing much faster before the war ended than after. It is the urban populations, and the richer households that have benefited from the post-war growth bump.