Episode 3 : Sri Lanka Spotlight IDEAs Podcast

Over the past few years Sri Lanka has experienced its worst ever economic crisis – fuel shortages, daily power cuts, no medicines, schools having to close, inflation running at 50 per cent, mass protests. In May 2022 for the first time in its history Sri Lanka failed to make an interest payment on its external debt. It’s now under an IMF austerity programme. Ahilan Kadirgamar, a sociology lecturer from Sri Lanka, provides the wider context and consequences. And Prathibha Fernando, a woman who lives just outside of the capital Colombo, shares her moving story about the personal costs of such economic hardships – including on her child’s education.