Knowledge-Policy Engagement

The purpose of our research is to propose policy recommendations on how to address the systemic inequalities underlying poverty and vulnerability. Consequently, CEPA has made a concerted effort to engage with policy makers to raise awareness and mobilise support for policy changes through various institutions and organisations.   Our work, within this area, covered the following:

Localising the Global UNDP Human Development Report 2014

Following the launch of the Human Development Report, Nayana Godamunne analysed it in relation to local issues in a discussion paper ‘UNDP Human Development Report 2014: Sustaining Human Progress – Reducing vulnerabilities and building resilience: Relevance for Sri Lanka’.  The paper was circulated among UNDP stakeholders in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka National Human Development Report 2014: Youth and Development

The UNDP commissioned CEPA and the Open University of Sri Lanka to conduct a research study leading up to the National Human Development Report (NHDR) 2014 of Sri Lanka. The report was prepared by the Open University of Sri Lanka and CEPA, in partnership with the Ministry of Finance and Planning. Two researchers from CEPA were part of the eight-member team that carried out the research and drafted the report.

Engagement following the 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting

In the lead-up to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka in November 2013, the Commonwealth Foundation consulted CEPA on the organisation of the Commonwealth Peoples' Forum (which took place on the sidelines of the main event, along with the Youth Forum and Business Forum). CEPA was engaged in preparatory meetings held in Colombo (May 2013) and Kuala Lampur (July 2013). The engagement allowed CEPA to shape the agenda of the Peoples' Forum, which brought together about 400 delegates from civil society organisations from Commonwealth nations. During the People's Forum event (held in November 2013 in Hikkaduwa), CEPA served on the steering committee, facilitated sessions, and was included in the delegation that met the Foreign Ministers to share the key recommendations from the Peoples' Forum.

Furthermore, CEPA participated in follow-up meetings in London in March and June 2014. Subsequent to these engagements, CEPA received a two-year grant from the Commonwealth Foundation for work related to stakeholder participation in developing a sustainable energy policy for Sri Lanka (the work will take place in collaboration with the Energy Forum).

CEPA was also invited to play a role at the Alternative Civil Society Assembly on CHOGM, organised by a network of civil society organisations that preferred to maintain a distance from the government-sponsored Peoples' Forum. Udan Fernando was one the three keynote speakers at the Alternative Civil Society Assembly (November 2013, Colombo).  Consequently, CEPA was selected to serve in a Civil Society Working Committee that sent delegations to the Presidential Secretariat, the NGO Secretariat and the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development to raise issues concerning the work of civil society organisations and coordination between civil society and government agencies.

Mainstreaming the National Involuntary Resettlement Policy into Resettlement Policy and Practice

A CEPA study during 2006-2010 revealed that implementing the National Involuntary Resettlement Policy (NIRP) during the construction of the southern highway, i.e. the Southern Transport Development Project (STDP), had protected the interests of communities resettled due to the project. CEPA actively disseminated these lessons, advocating for the NIRP to be mainstreamed in the land acquisition policy related to development.

In 2014, CEPA collaborated with the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) to advocate for a better resettlement policy with regard to urban evictions in Colombo (CPA has evaluated the impact of these evictions). CEPA and CPA lobbied for these policy changes at several key meetings with civil society actors and academics in October 2014. CEPA shared the STDP experience as a good practice and viable alternative to how some Colombo residents were resettled to make way for developing the city.

Making Sustainability the Next Metric: the Post-2015 Development Agenda

In 2013, CEPA launched an initiative, entitled ‘Making sustainability the next metric: the post-2015 development agenda,’ to increase awareness, dialogue and research on sustainability to feed into the global discussions on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We took this initiative further in 2014 with the projects below:

• Developing sustainable energy goals for Sri Lanka

Energy is a key feature in the post-2015 development agenda and of crucial importance to developing countries, which are reliant on expensive, imported, polluting fossil fuels to drive economic growth. In this context, CEPA co-hosted a workshop in February 2014 with the Energy Forum to provide information on the imperative for sustainable energy and create a network of stakeholders to lobby for sustainable energy policy and practice in Sri Lanka. Following this initiative, CEPA has begun a two-year programme with funding from the Commonwealth Foundation to facilitate civil society engagement into development of the sustainable energy policy and raise awareness on energy practices and energy rights among consumers.

• People’s development goals for Sri Lanka

During January-April 2014, CEPA and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement held discussions with civil society groups, gathering perceptions on what people in all nine provinces of Sri Lanka think should be the country’s development goals. This was to generate some ideas from the ground to feed into the post-2015 discussions and raise public awareness about development priorities.  

• Research on sustainability

This initiative has also resulted in prioritising two streams of work at CEPA on inequality and growth within natural limits. Two papers were commissioned by the Southern Voice (SV) on the post-2015 agenda to be presented at the 2015 SV research conference in Turkey.

• Spreading the word

The papers from CEPA’s 2013 Symposium were produced as a special issue of the Economic Review, a journal published by the People’s Bank, and widely circulated locally and internationally. Moreover, CEPA produced a number of articles and blog posts on the topic that were featured in the local newspapers, as well as on the websites of international websites organisations, such as the Overseas Development Institute and Southern Voice.

• Lobbying for change

CEPA became a member of three coalitions advocating SDGs in the post-2015 agenda: the Southern Voice on the post-2015 agenda (headed by the Centre for Policy Dialogue); the Climate Action Network (CAN); and the Asia Pacific Regional civil society organisations mechanism (set up under the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific).

These networks have been communicating recommendations to the SDG process, as a coalition, thus strengthening the voice of the region. Throughout 2014, CEPA provided input and feedback on documents and submissions for regular meetings/negotiations organised by the United Nations.

Reimagining Development

Reimagining Development aimed at creating a space for germinating new ideas, new publications and new research that challenge the conventional paradigms of development. Our activities during 2014 initiated an inclusive forum to exchange views, mainly within Sri Lanka, to stimulate new thinking towards development paradigms that are relevant to our current realities.

• Short Film Competition

In collaboration with Agenda 14, CEPA awarded sponsorships through small grants to prospective filmmakers interested in portraying ‘development’ in novel and creative ways. The competition started in November 2013 and eight films were completed by young, emerging filmmakers with diverse visions of development. The films were screened at a film festival from 12th-15th December, 2014. Subsequently, two of the films were selected for screening at the 9th Seattle South Asian Film Festival in October 2014, in the United States. The film “Hole in the Wall” which received much critical acclaim was screened at the Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival in Indonesia in December 2014. Films “Untitled” and “Good Boy’s Land” were screened at the Bonjour Film Festival at the National Film Corporation, Sri Lanka and films “Broken Bridges” and “4th of February” were screened the International Film Seminar, University of Colombo in March 2015. The film “4th of February” was selected as mandatory course resource material by the Delhi School of Economics for their B.A.(Hons) in Economics and M.Phil in Economics degrees in 2014. In January 2015, “4th of February” was included as mandatory class material for a course – “Development and Gender” at Portland State University, Oregon, USA.

• Lecture Series on Ethics and Development

Prof. Rajeev Bhargava and Prof. Charles Taylor shared their views on the meaning of secularism in a plural society. The lectures were titled ‘Roles of Religion and Secularism in a Plural Society.’  



In collaboration with the Law Students’ Association of Sri Lanka, CEPA organised a lecture series on ‘Religious Freedom and the Law in Sri Lanka: an Introspect into the Proposed Anti-Conversion Bill.’ The speakers included Prof. Savitri Goonesekere, Hon. Wijedasa Rajapakse, Member of Parliament, and Prasanna Lal de Alwis, President's Counsel.

The lectures drew an overwhelmingly large and diverse crowd, triggering stimulating discussions.

• National essay and art competition on (translation) ‘Development and Humanity: My dream about a humane and an eco-friendly tomorrow’

With this event, CEPA connected with a new audience for our work - school children (aged 16-18) in 2,000 rural and urban schools. The response was overwhelming. The panel of judges (which included eminent artists and writers) had a difficult task selecting the 10 prize winning essays and paintings.  The paintings and essays were showcased at the Public Library in Colombo.

• Reimagining Development website (http://reimagining.cepa.lk/index.php/si/)

This website is not only a repository for our work but also, our ambassador, the conveyor of our current and future ideational stance. It is intended to reach places our organisation cannot afford to. The website contributes to re-shaping development thought that is often initiated in the global North. In the past year, diverse individuals – academics, researchers, students and development practitioners – have written blog posts or produced photo essays on various topics and themes.

• Publication of articles, blog posts in newspapers, magazines and websites

The weekly newspaper column ‘The Monday Morning Question,’ initiated in May 2013, was carried forward in 2014 and used to generate a critical mass of writing and dissemination on the idea and alternative visions of development in Sri Lanka. Some of the articles from the Monday Morning Question were re-written and published in an edited volume titled ‘You May Say I’m a Dreamer: Essays on Reimagining Development.’

• Short course on rethinking gender in development

The ‘Women in Development Deconstructed’ session at the 2014 Symposium was dedicated to looking at development through a feminist lens. As the Symposium culminated with many lingering questions, CEPA identified the need for more critical thinking on how feminist theory and thinking feeds into development research. Consequently, CEPA initiated a series of guest lectures by leading feminist activists and academics. The lectures covered a broad range of topics, such as women and the development discourse, intersectionality, globalisation and feminism, women and post-conflict situations etc.

• New horizons for human development

Together with CEPA participants, Dr. Ananta Kumar Giri conducted an interactive discussion based on his book, ‘Sociology and Beyond: Windows and Horizons.’ This was part of a series of workshops, lectures and discussions to initiate dialogue on incorporating a value-based paradigm of development. Several follow-up activities were proposed: including future collaboration with the Asia Forum for Social Theory and partnering with the ‘Collective Dreaming’ initiative of the Kerala Shastra Parishad.

• CEPA Refresher Course on Critical Poverty Analysis: Approaches, Concepts, Measures

Prof. Ashwani Saith conducted a refresher course in October 2014 for CEPA researchers to build capacities in conceptualising, indentifying and measuring poverty deprivation.

Communicating CEPA’s work

Guest Talks

• ‘Ecological Challenges in Addressing Sanitation Coverage. The Case of India’
  Dr. Vijayaraghavan M. Chariar, Associate Professor, Centre for Rural Development and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, India

• ‘People’s Spaces: Beyond the Intellectual Cloud Cover’
  Dr. Nihal Perera, Professor of Urban Planning at Ball State University, USA

• ‘Background Characteristics and Educational Transitions in Sri Lanka: 1985-2010’ 
  Rachel Cole, Doctoral candidate in International Education at New York University, USA

• ‘Economic Well-being in a Fishing Village in the Jaffna District’
  Julia Knoeff, Master’s student in International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam 

CEPA Café

• ‘City and its People. Documenting the Changing Landscape. To Actively Look Rather than Passively Look’
  Chandragupta Thenuwara, Abdul Halik Azeez and Priyanthi Fernando
  

Film Forum

• ‘Ingirunthy….Here and now’
  Directed by Dr. Sumathy Sivamohan, this Sri Lankan Tamil film is about the upcountry plantation community, their lives, history and political struggles. The film highlights many issues, specifically those faced by women and youth, such as wage struggles and gender inequality, both at home and work. The film also poses subtle questions on the role of trade unions in the plantation community.

Open Forums

• ‘Ensuring Quality of Survey data’
  This landmark 50th CEPA Open Forum took place in the context of controversies on data quality relating to national statistics. Prof. S. S. Colombage and Dr. Anila Dias Bandaranaike. discussed the credibility of data from the angle of research quality criteria and standards. Dr Indrajit Coomaraswamy moderated the Forum.

• ‘Space for Citizens' Actions: From an Anti-corruption Campaign to AamAdmi Party to the BJP victory’
  Dr. Rajesh Tandon, President, Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), New Delhi, UNESCO Chair in Community-based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education

Book Launch

• National and Household Food Security in Sri Lanka by Dr. Nimal Sanderatne and Sharmini De Alwis

Working with the media