Go ‘Beyond the Box’, Pathfinder suggests to the President, PM and Basil Rajapaksa

COLOMBO (News 1st): Go ‘Beyond the Box’, Pathfinder suggests to the President, PM and Basil Rajapaksa • A milestone week for the Pathfinder foundation. • The overall focus should be to mitigate the hardship of the people. • Cutting red tape and promoting digitization of public services Sri Lanka’s overall focus of economic policy should be on mitigating the hardship of the people, moving towards restoring economic stability in the short-run and improving the investment climate for business, a local thinktank said in a report submitted to President and Prime Minister. Local thinktank, the pathfinder foundation handed over a comprehensive report to the President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and the head of the National Taskforce for the Prevention of COVID-19 former minister Basil Rajapaksa. The report titled the Pathfinder beyond the box: A new economic vision for post-COVID-19 Sri Lanka contains a set of action-oriented recommendations from an eminent persons study group aimed at steering Sri Lanka into a post-COVID-19 era of economic recovery. Improving food security and livelihoods by modernizing agricultural systems and well-targeted social protection in practical terms, doing whatever it takes to find the monies for debt payments and financing social welfare, the report suggested. The report also suggested to cut the red tape and promoting digitization of public services to allow the private sector to diversify and to create jobs and better institutional coordination for implementing economic policies and development projects. The study group was chaired by Pathfinder Senior Fellow and former Central Bank Governor, Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy. Dr. Sisira Pinnawala, Department of the Sociology University of Peradeniya, and Dr. Ganeshan Wignaraja, Executive Director of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies, served as the principal authors for this initiative. Other members of the study group, included twenty leaders from academia, research and the private sector, including Prof. Sirimal Abeyratne, Dr. Sujata Gamage, Dr. Dileni Guawardena, Prof. Ariyaratne Herath, Prof. Saroj Jayasinghe, Prof. Mallika Pinnawala, Prof. Rohan Samarajiva, Mr. Krishan Balendra, Mr. Nimal Cooke, Mr. Sheran Fernando, Mr. Diren Hallock, Mr. Jiang Houliang, Mr. Murtaza Jafferjee, Mr. Mohamed Mushin, Mr. Ashroff Omar, Mr. Arun Pathak, Mr. Suren Ratwatte, Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Mr. Mangala Boyagoda, Mr. M H Jamaldeen, Mr. Ahilan Kadirgamar, Dr. Nilanga Samarasinghe and Mr. Rajendra Theagarajah.