Debt restructuring overwhelms the poor: CRISIS, PRODUCTION AND THE CO-OPERATIVE ALTERNATIVE

Every crisis forces us as a people, and for that matter as a country, to rethink our future.

- Ahilan Kadirgamar

The failed postwar reconstruction in the North a decade ago made many of us approach rural development with a focus on rebuilding co-gneratives.

Similarly, the worst economic crisis ravaging our country since the 1930s has now put forward the challenge of how we think about our economic future. This great challenge before the Government is also for the people and its movements; teachers’ associations, trade unions, cooperatives, and many other social institutions have to rethink their demands and their way forward.

The national budget will be announced in a few days, and hopefully it will provide some direction for a way out of this long crisis. However, we cannot expect much in terms of allocations until the IMF programme with its austerity measures ends. We _ should also be clear and aware of the scale of this crisis. Sri Lanka has lost a decade in terms of economic growth and two decades in terms of bringing people out of poverty; Sri Lanka’s GDP is expected to return to 2018 levels only in 2026, and poverty levels to pre-crisis levels only in 2034. In effect we have lost an entire generation!

This great economic depression devastating our economy has disrupted livelihoods, drastically reduced income streams and affected our food system. The situation would not have been this bad if successive governments had not abandoned the rural economy, and not taken the path of trade liberalisation in agriculture. Furthermore, the state institutions responsible for the rural sectors — whether it be agricultural extension, rural development departments or agencies supporting cooperatives — were cut down only to exist in name with little resources.