Small tank cascade systems (STCS) are part of Sri Lanka’s hydraulic civilization. These systems interconnected small man-made reservoirs which capture seasonal rainwater for agriculture, household, and environmental purposes are considered the lifeblood of communities in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka. These time-tested drought and floodmitigation systems are now increasingly being seen as excellent community resilience systems for adaptation to climate change in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka. Somewhat neglected by the authorities, the systems are now being revived, and restoration of degraded STCS is being recognised as a viable option for adaptation in the National Action Plan for Climate Change Adaptation in Sri Lanka as well as articulated as adaptation actions in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. This chapter brings out the unique features of these systems and discusses how the systems have been helpful in addressing drought and floodmitigation historically; in building climate change resilience in small-scale farming communities in the Dry Zone in the present context in; how they were managed over time and what future they hold in climate change adaptation planning in the country.

Exports affect economic growth through several channels. It is argued that not only the volume of exports but what you export also matters to growth. This article investigates the effect of exports and export composition on the economic growth process in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s exporting sector has performed remarkably, in particular, in the post-liberalization period. During the same period, her former commodity-dependant exporting sector has been transformed into one that largely exports low technology manufactures. Our regression analysis showed that the expansion of the exporting sector has positively and significantly affected gross domestic product (GDP) growth due to higher productivity level in the sector. However, the full benefits of a vibrant exporting sector have not materialized in Sri Lankan context since the externality spillovers of the exporting sector are negligible. Further, it showed that export diversification has played an important role in enhancing the growth prospect since it is the manufacturing exporting sector that has higher productivity level than the other sectors.

This study attempts to investigate the Youth Not in Education, Employment and Training (NEET) in Sri Lanka. The objectives of this study include identifying the share of youth NEET in Sri Lanka as a percentage of population with regards to national, sectoral, gender, education, ethnicity and marital status, and to identify the determinants of those who are NEET. This study is based on cross-sectional data obtained from Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey (SLFS) 2015. The methodology adopted for the study consists of two major components. First component attempts to generate youth NEET estimates for Sri Lanka using descriptive statistics tools. The second component of the methodology includes a logistic regression analysis to identify the determinants of youth NEET. The study found that Sri Lanka has a significantly high youth NEET rate of 25.8 percent in 2015, which is unsatisfactory to the Sri Lankan labour market. This raises the labour market vulnerability with regards to youth population of Sri Lanka. The research also found the significant NEET disparities among youths by sector, gender, age, education, ethnicity and marital status. Moreover, the logistic regression analysis identified age, gender, education, residential sector and marital status as the significant determinants of youth NEET in Sri Lanka.

Poverty as a concept encompasses multiple dimensions, yet, for decades, has been measured based on tangible wealth or the level of income. It brings into question the effectiveness of using only an income-based indicator to measure such a complex phenomenon.This paper attempts to analyse poverty through a novel lens known as time poverty. Conceptually, time poverty is defined as the lack of time for leisure due to time spent on employment and domestic activities. This is directly linked to welfare as it affects the health and productivity of individuals. Employing the first Time-Use Survey conducted in Sri Lanka in 2017, this study aims to measure time poverty based on the time allocated for labour and non-labour market activities. Based on the findings, insights relating to the gendered nature of time poverty, socio-demographic patterns and occupational influences can be inferred. The incidence of time poverty was approximately 40 per cent, with a significant portion of the employed men and women in the urban area being subject to time poverty. At the higher threshold of time poverty, women were more time-poor than their male counterparts across urban, rural and estate sectors. When considering both sex and sector, women in the urban sample were the most time-poor. Thus, a gendered pattern can be identified through these results, necessitating policy attention.

The study of FDI spillover effects on domestic firms in developing countries has attracted the attention of many researchers over the past few decades. This study examines the role of country of origin of foreign investors in influencing FDI spillovers in the manufacturing sector in Nigeria using survey data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey published in 2018. Our study differs from previous FDI studies in the sense that existing studies in Nigeria did not pay attention to the country of origin of foreign investors in the analysis of FDI spillover effects. We follow the methodology of Javorcik (2004) in constructing the FDI spillover variables and use the augmented Cobb-Douglas production function to estimate the spillover effects of FDI on productivity of local firms where we incorporate investors' origin. Pooled OLS is used for the estimation of the parameters. The results of the regression analysis show that investors that originated from Europe have positive and statistically significant impact on productivity and also generate more technology spillovers compared to investors from Asia, Middle East and Africa. It is recommended that policymakers consider the source country of foreign investors when formulating FDI policies and further micro level studies are needed for more understanding how FDI spillovers affect the performance of local firms in developing countries especially in Africa.