ECONOMYNEXT – Trees in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo are being monitored by the municipal council, Army and Civil Defense Force as the severe weather conditions continue, State Minister for Defense Premitha Bandara Tennakoon said.

“Within the Colombo Municipal Council city limits, there are 100,000 trees. Of these, around 300 are considered high risk,” Tennakoon told reporters at a media conference to raise awareness about the current disaster management situation.

Not all trees required to be cut down he said. “We can trim some of the branches and retain them.”

The problem was that buildings in the vicinity of the tree had cut branches on one side, causing it to become unbalanced, the minister said.

New laws would be brought in so provincial/municipal institutions could strengthen enforcement of building codes.

“We don’t have a single institution that can issue a warning about a tree. Not one to tell us what trees can or cannot be planted near a road.

“Trees should be suitable for the area. Some trees have roots that spread and damage roads, buildings. When the roots can’t go deep, they tend to topple over.

“Now Environment Day is coming up, and anyone can go plant a tree by the road. We have to take a decision about this. We have to enforce laws strongly in future.” (Colombo/June3/2024)

ECONOMYNEXT — Support for leftist candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake dropped six percentage points to 39 percent in April, levelling with opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, while support for President Ranil Wickremesinghe increased three points to 13 percent in a presidential election voting intent poll.

The Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) conducted by the Institute for Health Policy showed that, according to its Multilevel Regression and Poststratification (MRP) provisional estimates of presidential election voting intent, National People’s Power (NPP) leader Dissanayake and main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) lader Premadasa were now neck and neck while United National Party (UNP) leader Wickremesinghe had made some gains. A generic candidate for the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) had the support of 9 percent of the people surveyed, up 1 percentage point from March.

These estimates use the January 2024 revision of the IHP’s SLOTS MRP model. The latest update is for all adults and uses data from 17,134 interviews conducted from October 2021 to 19 May 2024, including 444 interviews during April 2024. According to the institute, 100 bootstraps were run to capture model uncertainty. Margins of error are assessed as 1–4% for April.

SLOTS polling director and IHP director Ravi Rannan-Eliya was quoted as saying: “The SLOTS polling in April suffered from a lower response rate owing to the New Year holidays, and we think this may have skewed the sample in favour of SJB supporters. The early May interviews partly compensated for this, and it’s possible that our June interviews may result in further revisions
to our model estimates.

Rannan-Eliya also noted that a number of other internet polls may be overestimating support for the NPP or its main constituent party the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) by about 10 percent.

“We’ve been asked about some other recent internet polls that showed much higher levels of support for the NPP/JVP. We think these over-estimate NPP/JVP support. SLOTS routinely collects data from all respondents on whether they have internet access, and whether they are willing to participate in an internet survey. These data show that NPP/JVP supporters are far more likely to have internet access and even more likely to be willing to respond to internet surveys, and this difference remains even after controlling for past voting behaviour. Our data indicates internet polls may overestimate NPP/JVP support by about 10 percent, and for this kind of reason we have previously decided that the time is not right to do internet polling,” he said.

According to the IHP, its SLOTS MRP methodology first estimates the relationship between a wide variety of characteristics about respondents and their opinions – in this case, ‘If there was a Presidential Election today, who would you vote for?’– in a multilevel statistical model that also smooths month to month changes. It then uses a large data file that is calibrated to the national population to predict voting intent in each month since October 2021, according to what the multilevel model says about their probability of voting for various parties (‘post-stratification’) at each point in time. The multilevel model was estimated 100 times to reflect underlying uncertainties in the model and to obtain margins of error, the institute said. (Colombo/Jun03/2024)

ECONOMYNEXT — Sri Lanka surpasses regional counterparts in recruiting women at the entry-level in the banking sector, with women comprising 46 percent of new recruits, though barriers, remain, a new International Finance Corporation (IFC) study has found.

The report, supported by the Women in Work programme, a partnership between IFC and the Australian government, also highlights Sri Lanka’s leadership in board-level gender diversity, with women holding 27 percent of board positions, compared to 20 percent in Nepal and 14 percent in Bangladesh.

The IFC said in a statement on Monday June 03 that the report, Women’s Advancement in Banking in Emerging South Asian Countries, aims to optimise opportunities that enable women to advance to senior roles in the banking industry across South Asia. The multi-country study, among the first of its kind in the region, focuses on private-sector commercial banks in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, where women constitute 30 percent of the banking workforce compared to the global average of 52 percent, the IFC said.

Research conducted across seven leading private commercial banks in Sri Lanka, representing 41 percent of the market share, formed the basis of insights on Sri Lanka.

“While Sri Lanka’s banking industry is close to achieving parity in hiring women and is considerably ahead of other countries in terms of women’s share in the workforce, women’s progression does not match their career aspirations or progression rates for men. Representation drops from 40 percent at entry-level to 27 percent in middle management and further to 20 percent in senior management roles,” the IFC said in its statement.

IFC’s Regional Director for South Asia Imad N Fakhoury was quoted as saying that investing in the potential of women leaders isn’t just about equality, it’s about unlocking the full spectrum of talent and driving sustainable growth–exactly what Sri Lanka needs for a resilient economic recovery.

“Addressing the multifaceted challenges faced by female bankers requires comprehensive and collective action, rather than isolated interventions. We must tackle these barriers—whether policy, process, or culture–related—in a targeted manner, creating an inclusive banking sector and driving greater economic growth,” he said.

The report underlines how barriers such as lack of fair evaluations, sociocultural constraints and non-conducive work environments curtail women’s growth prospects in the Sri Lankan banking industry. While banks and policymakers have initiated several steps to improve women’s participation and career progression, stronger commitment from leadership is essential to create inclusive workplaces. According to the IFC, the report reveals skepticism among many employees, including senior leaders and more than 50 percent of middle managers, regarding the importance of female leadership for businesses to be competitive.

Previous research indicates that commercial banks with at least 15 percent of women in senior management achieve up to 33 percent higher return on equity. A growing body of evidence further links an increase in women’s representation in organisations to better performance on business metrics, the study found.

“This comprehensive, data-based report is a strong starting point for the banking sector to improve long-term policies allowing women and men to achieve their potential. The sector – as well as other organisations – should take note of findings that show an increase in women’s representation in senior manager or higher roles delivers higher returns and stronger business outcomes,” Australian High Commissioner for Sri Lanka Paul Stephens  was quoted as saying.

The report also recommends targeted efforts in Sri Lanka to bolster women’s participation and advancement in commercial banking. These include establishing organisational commitment and accountability for gender diversity, building equitable and safe workplaces, and developing supportive ecosystems, networks, and professional development opportunities. These findings and recommendations aim to guide industry actors—C-suite leaders in commercial banks, policymakers, industry bodies, and investors—towards increasing women’s representation in leadership in the banking industry, the IFC said. (Colombo/Jun03/2024)