19.5 Government Initiatives to Enhance Sri Lanka’s Bioeconomy
Green growth and sustainable development Pathway
The Green Growth and Sustainable Development Pathway of Sri Lanka, aligned with the nation’s vision for 2030, revolves around a comprehensive strategy aimed at harmonizing economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, and social inclusivity. Envisioned as a leader on the practical Balanced Inclusive Green Growth (BIGG) path, Sri Lanka aspires to achieve the following key objectives by 2030: The pathway emphasizes the creation of a robust and dynamic economy that ensures a high quality of life. It seeks resource efficiency, technological advancement, economic stability, and resilience to shocks. Crucially, this economic growth is to transpire while respecting environmental and social sustainability constraints. Building on Sri Lanka’s traditional respect for nature, the pathway advocates for a green environment. This entails keeping resource use and the ecological footprint within the sustainable bio-capacity of the country. The approach involves responsible and sustainable practices to preserve and enhance the natural environment. The pathway underscores the importance of fostering a society that meets the basic needs of all its citizens, particularly focusing on essentials such as food, water, energy, health, education, shelter, and livelihoods for the vulnerable segments. Additionally, it encourages values of peace, harmony, reconciliation, inclusion, social justice, and security. To monitor progress and align efforts, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), appropriately tailored to Sri Lankan needs, are considered as a helpful framework. Work is ongoing to specify indicators and targets, particularly for SDG3. Inspired by the Sri Lankan tradition of the middle path, the socio-economic system is evolving towards a people-oriented and open structure. This system is founded on democratic and pluralistic institutions, safeguarding unique values, heritage, and the environment. Key stakeholders, including the government, private sector, and civil society, are expected to play balanced, cooperative, and effective roles within this framework, working through public, private, people partnerships (4Ps). The principles of sustainable development, rooted in the Sustainomics framework, guide the approach. These principles include harmonizing the sustainable development triangle, empowering immediate action at all levels, transcending mental barriers through innovation, and encouraging urgent practical implementation using existing methods and tools.
Strengthening the biotechnology sector in Sri Lanka by improving policy
The National Science Foundation (NSF) in Sri Lanka thinks biotechnology could be a big deal for the country. So, they’re looking at the rules they have about it. They’ve formed a team of experts to check if these rules are up-to-date and if they help biotech grow in Sri Lanka. This team has come up with some ideas to make the rules better. To get ideas from the important people involved in biotech, they had a meeting at the NSF on September 19, 2023. The head of the NSF, Emeritus Professor Ranjith Senaratne, talked about how important it is to have rules that help without causing problems. Another leader, Dr. Sepalika Sudasinghe, spoke about three things needed for good rules: people liking them, government being okay with them, and being right technically. They’re involving lots of people—about 60 from different areas like schools, research places, and companies—to get their thoughts. These ideas will help make the rules better. Once they gather everyone’s thoughts, they’ll write down the final ideas and give them to the National Science and Technology Commission (NASTEC), who have been working with them on this. NASTEC will then make sure these new ideas become the official rules for biotech in Sri Lanka.