Hunger in Sri Lanka: Causes and Solutions

Running head: HUNGER IN SRI LANKA
HUNGER IN SRI LANKA
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1HUNGER IN SRI LANKA
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Historical factor...............................................................................................................................2
Cultural factor..................................................................................................................................3
Structural factor...............................................................................................................................3
Critical Analysis..............................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5

2HUNGER IN SRI LANKA
Introduction
Sri Lanka is one of the developing Asian country in world and economically it is
progressing as a middle-income country. United nation’s SDGs goals to end all the forms of
hunger and situation of malnutrition by 2030 in such low income country. They also focus to
provide sufficient nutritious food to all people and children. Unfortunately, extreme hunger in Sri
Lanka and prevalence of malnutrition is the huge barrier towards development. One million
children of Sri Lanka are facing the issue of malnutrition which need much greater time for
sustainable development in field of hunger and food security (Amantha Perera, 2017). Sri Lanka
has faced low food productivity in 2017, which is reported to be 63% below than the normal
production (Davis, Gephart & Gunda, 2016). Therefore, Sri Lanka is unlikely to achieve
sustainable development goal of hunger and food security by 2030. Health is the condition of
physical, emotional and mental status of person. Due to hunger, health of people is badly
affected, they are facing the issue of malnutrition and various lethal disease like diabetes and
osteoporosis The sustainable development is kind of growth that fulfill the need of present
generation without affecting the future generation need. Malnutrition is deficiencies in intake of
balanced diet which result in detrimental condition in health of individual out of hunger and poor
quality food (World Health Organization, 2018).
Historical factor
Disaster management center of Sri Lanka 2018 has reported the issue of drought in 16
district in 2016. In Jaffna district, more than 370,000 people have been affected by it. In Ampara,
Batticaloa and Trincomalee was also badly affected by dry climate (hunger status, 2017). It is
reported that chili cultivation and rice harvesting has got severely damaged. This drought has
pushed more than 9 lakhs of people toward acute food insecurity. Additionally, Sri Lanka is also
more prone to tsunami. In 2004 it was one of the badly affected country which had lost more
than 200,000 of people (Amjath-Babu, Aggarwal & Vermeulen, 2019). It also destroys the land
and left with prevalence of hunger and food insecurity among the people. Government has
allowed tax-free rice import from other country until the harvest get recovered (Global Hunger
Index, 2018). It has also started cash-for-programs in drought areas by providing cash assistance
to 500,000 persons (UNDP, 2018). Government has given Rs 200 million in dry zone areas to
construct wells for cultivation of rice (UNDP, 2018)