Sri Lanka: Strengthening Social Protection

Abstract

This report reviews Sri Lanka's social protection programs and proposes strategic options for enhancing their role in promoting growth with equity. Well designed social protection (SP) systems can help address poverty and inequality through redistribution, and mitigate risks and facilitate employment opportunities, thus contributing to both growth and equity goals. The report first identifies the poor and vulnerable (chapter 1) and then reviews and evaluates employment protection and promotion policies and programs (chapter 2), social security/insurance schemes (chapter 3), and safety net programs (chapter 4) and proposes policy options The concluding chapter summarizes key analytical findings and presents a unified policy framework to improve social protection. The report relies mainly on extensive existing literature from Sri Lankan and international researchers. The remaining part of this section summarizes the main issues and policy options.