Policy Recommendations for Establishing a Long-Term Landslide Risk Management Strategy for Sri Lanka

One of the observations during recent studies on major landslides in Sri Lanka, is non or lack of efforts for compliance with existing policies. Such shortcomings in policy compliance, which is also observed in many other countries, can be due to their poor technical understanding, implementation gaps, institutional weaknesses, interferences of influential parties etc. That indicates the necessity for efforts in better risk governance and importance of positioning the same around the theme of sustainable development. It also entails the introduction of appropriate institutional arrangement; the creation of appropriate policy & legal framework and the continuous resource allocations for mitigation of landslide risk. Within this context, setting up a development framework inclusive of landslide risk management interventions and climate change adaptation, will have very important long-term outcomes not only in reducing the future landslide risk but also in sustaining the gains of development. The Sri Lanka Community Landslide Risk Mitigation project, which was funded by the World Bank was an appropriate initiative and opportunity for identifying the essentials for improving the policy environment and compliance. The project study was based on Badulla District and covered assessment of degree of community vulnerability, analysis of major setbacks for policy compliance and identification of areas of improvement. The paper presents the outcome of the study and recommendations for creating an enabling policy environment and improving the risk management practices as a part of a long-term landslide disaster risk management strategy for the country.