Recalibrating Aswesuma: A move towards a dynamic and adaptive social registry in Sri Lanka

In April this year, the Cabinet approved the expansion and extension of Aswesuma.

- BY Dr. Pulasthi Amarasinghe

This is timely, as strengthening social protection remains a critical priority as Sri Lanka continues to grapple with the aftermath of its economic crisis. However, Aswesuma’s effectiveness, especially in terms of its impact on household welfare, will depend on its ability to identify the beneficiaries.

The recent publication by the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS), “Estimating Aswesuma Effectiveness”, examines the impact of Aswesuma on targeting welfare improvements for the most vulnerable households. The findings suggest that while targeting the poor is an improvement under the social registry, it can be further developed to improve key welfare outcomes, particularly food insecurity and labour force participation.

The study findings were presented at aroundtable held at the IPS recently, where policymakers and stakeholders discussed the performance of Aswesuma and proposed ways to improve the system’s responsiveness. The roundtable highlighted both the achievements of the programme and emerging challenges, such as the difficulty of capturing transient poverty and the importance of refining the eligibility criteria.

Current Transfers: Simulated impacts on household welfare

The Aswesuma programme uses the newly developed digitised social registry to identify and distribute benefits. The social registryaims to modernise social protection toward a long-term, transparent, flexible, data-driven social registry aimed at better identifying and supporting households in multidimensional poverty. At the inception of the programme, the Aswesuma scheme provided tiered cash transfers ranging from Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 15,000 based on households’ poverty levels.