Letters to the Editor
View(s):Time to reaffirm national ownership of disaster response and recovery
I write in response to a recent article in a local newspaper titled “Flood Relief Should Help Victims, Not Bureaucracies. Sri Lanka Has the Capacity to Respond to Disaster. Donors Should Let It.” The article offered a calm but compelling examination of how international donors and United Nations agencies operate in Sri Lanka, challenging the persistent assumption that these interventions are driven purely by altruism.
What it described is part of a broader and well-documented global pattern often referred to as “aid colonisation”, in which parallel systems are created that answer more readily to donors and international headquarters than to national institutions or citizens. Sri Lanka has lived through this repeatedly: during the war, after the tsunami, following the Easter attacks, through the economic crisis, and now once again after Ditwah.
We Sri Lankans must also accept responsibility for having allowed this arrangement to persist. Claims that our institutions lack capacity, or that “beggars can’t be choosers,” are repeated so often they have acquired the veneer of truth. We are not a failed state, and we are not beggars. While corruption has undeniably weakened public trust, recent efforts to rebuild transparency and financial accountability must be strengthened, not quietly undermined through externally managed funding mechanisms.
It was therefore deeply troubling to see public soliciting of donations on social media by a UN representative while standing beside flood victims in Kaduwela. Such actions, whatever their intent, risk positioning international agencies as the primary custodians of disaster response in Sri Lanka. Fundraising and disbursement are not discretionary acts; they require the approval of the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs and must operate within nationally accountable frameworks.
Our government should take a clear and principled stand by halting such parallel fundraising and disbursement efforts, and by directing international donors to work through nationally led systems that strengthen, rather than sideline, Sri Lankan institutions.
Moments of crisis test not only our capacity to respond, but our willingness to defend sovereignty, dignity, and accountability. I hope the government will seize this moment to reaffirm national ownership of disaster response and recovery.
Samantha K. Perera Kandy
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