Amidst all the fun and celebrations with the dawn of the New Year in two days’ time, let us spend a few minutes reflectiing on what is in store for the country, in the next year.
Sri Lanka being committed to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 is now on a mission to strengthen democracy, fundamental rights, reconciliation and development for lasting peace, freedom and national integration. Anything and everything under the sun, as far as human development is concerned, seems to have been included in these goals. But the most important thing would be social inclusion.
Let us talk about it. There are 17 goals in the SDGs and Goal No 16 reflects the promotion of a peaceful and inclusive society for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. This is specifically dedicated to social inclusion. However, the other SDGs are also indirectly related to it.
What exactly is social inclusion? It is the act of making all groups of people within a society feel equally valued and equally important. Every individual should feel their opinion is heard and recorded for the process of policy making. The history of social inclusion dates back to the 19th century, but technically, the concept was renamed in the 1970s as ‘Social Cohesion’. In the 1980s and 90s the same concept spread throughout Europe and UK in the name of ‘social inclusion’.
Unequal society
Social inclusion is an essential element to Sri Lanka, because it is a melting pot where multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and multi religious groups live together in one country. They are intermixed. None of the religion, ethnicity, culture or language that of them each belong to are their choice. It is predestined. Other than those material tags, you and I are human beings.
The reason why the UN gave inclusiveness higher priority is that they have realized that the gap between the haves and the have-nots has increased and keeps widening. The World Bank report says, poverty has fallen in Sri Lanka but fiscal growth, and inclusion challenges, need to be tackled so as to sustain progress.
A lot of people were pulled out of poverty through SDGs but at the same time, the gap between the societies widened.
Why has this happened? There are two challenges. One, that the policy makers find it difficult to define and measure social inclusion. Matters related to social inclusion deal with complexities and unpredictability.
There is a serious lack of evidence. We have not yet evolved a proven way of collecting evidence to measure inclusion. We have not identified the type of evidence we are looking for because the information is fragmented.
Whatever evidence we have is collected by different institutions, ministries and government agencies. When they collect evidence, the most vulnerable and disadvantaged sector of the population would not figure in their evidence.
Hence, it is important to design data and evidence collection procedure in a way that captures the needs of the most destitute as well.
The second challenge is our inability to engage all stakeholders in the program. Social inclusion is a process, which if not followed, will not have a suitable end result.
Sri Lanka can be proud of the social indicators which rank among the highest in South Asia and compare favourably with those in middle-income countries. Economic growth has translated into shared prosperity with the national poverty headcount ratio declining.
But, a relatively large share of the population (about 40 percent) subsists on slightly more than the extreme poverty line. And, almost 70% of the labour force is in the informal sector, with low wages and no social security.
Add to this, a crisis in nutrition in many parts of the country, and a weakened social protection system - all of which are exacerbated by gendered, ethnicised class-based deprivation, as well as exclusions.
Decades of inequitable political economic development have generated a landscape with many expanding pockets of marginality.
This is evident in places as far apart and diverse as Moneragala, Batticaloa, Puttalam and Mullaitivu, which have entrenched pockets of poverty.
Communities ranging from Colombo’s urban poor, to the Up-Country Plantation community, to the Veddas and workers in manufacturing, services and agriculture, as well as fisher folk and farmers, suffer various forms of deprivation and exclusion.
The above underlines that Sri Lanka’s commitments to social inclusion assume an urgency and significance today that they have perhaps never had before.
Solution
Respecting political, socio-economic and cultural identity of each other is especially relevant. There should be proper interventions and actions to provide for equal opportunity of participation for all segments in society, the economy and politics. Confidence building and acceptance is a must for that.
The police, judiciary and state administration should respect the individual rights of all, irrespective of religion, ethnicity, wealth and political party affiliation. There is a need for respect and voicing all forms of identity.
Ethics education is popular in every country which promotes social inclusion. Equal access to resources, a life of dignity, and full participation in the life of the community, is all about social inclusion.
Finally, if we can understand and practice what it means, that will result in an unbelievable improvement in our social equity.