A Retrospect on Poverty and Inequality - Lessons from before the pandemic

In addition, water and sanitation coverage has improved considerably, the grid connected electricity reaches almost 98 % of the population and the road density of Sri Lanka is one of the highest in the South Asian Region (World Bank, 2016a). [...] The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a negative impact on the economy of Sri Lanka and 5 (Sarma and Parinduri, 2021) for example, show that expenditure on vice goods vary by the gender of the head of the household. [...] For instance, agriculture continues to be an important economic activity in the Northern Province and land related corruption (Lindberg and Herath, 2014) and instances of gazetting land under forest, wildlife, archaeology and Mahaweli creates conflict over the use of land, on who benefits from it and has negative effects on the lives and livelihoods of those engaged in agriculture and animal husba. [...] The small size of the farms in the food crop sector, land fragmentation and tenure problems and the inadequate irrigation infrastructure impose severe limits for growth of farm incomes, depletion of natural resources and the persistence of poverty in Uva (Uva Provincial Council, 2019). [...] A third concern is the misalignment of education and skills of the labour force to the needs of the industry.