Centre for Poverty Analysis

Climate change doesn't just cause sudden disasters, it quietly reshapes who can stay, who has to leave, and who gets left behind.

In our latest blog, Dr. Mohamed Munas, Senior Researcher and Team Leader for Social Cohesion and Reconciliation at CEPA, unpacks Sri Lanka's climate-human mobility blind spot: the slow, gendered, often invisible movement of people that disaster data simply doesn't capture.

🔗Read the full blog on our website: https://cepa.lk/blog/sri-lankas-climate-human-mobility-blind-spot/

World Oceans Day is a reminder that protecting our oceans is as much about people as it is about ecosystems.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are not only about protecting ecosystems. They are also about how different groups share, access, and govern the same coastal space.

In Kalpitiya, fishing livelihoods, conservation priorities, and tourism interests intersect, raising questions of power, participation, and justice.

Swipe through to see what our fieldwork found.

Growing old in Sri Lanka's hill communities is shaped by more than age.

Across our fieldwork in Kandy, we found that geography, poverty, and limited care access create a cycle that compounds with every passing year.

Sri Lanka's 60+ population is projected to reach 1 in 4 by 2042, but care systems are not keeping pace.

Services remain urban-centred. Families carry most care responsibilities. Social protection remains limited.

This is not just about ageing. It is about care poverty.

🔗 Read the full piece by CEPA Senior Research Professional Nilupulee Rathnayake, published on Development Asia:

https://development.asia/insight/when-geography-shapes-aging-care-poverty-sri-lankas-hill-communities

Research supported by LIRNEasia

She didn't know what was happening to her body.

For two-thirds of menstruators in urban-poor settlements in Colombo, their first period arrived without warning. No conversation, no preparation, no one to tell them it was normal.

In the Nuwara Eliya estate sector, young girls spent an average of 34 days in isolation after their first period. Not hours. Not a weekend. 34 days.

Many go on to manage severe pain alone, too afraid and too ashamed to ask for help.

This is period poverty. Not just the absence of pads or tampons, but the absence of knowledge, dignity, and care.

Today, on International Menstrual Hygiene Day, we are sharing findings from two of our studies conducted in Colombo and Nuwara Eliya, that put faces and numbers to a reality that rarely makes it into public conversation.

Because the first step to change is knowing what we are up against.

Read our full findings:

🔗Colombo study: https://cepa.lk/publications/period-poverty-research-findings-colombo-district/

🔗Nuwara Eliya estate sector study: https://cepa.lk/publications/period-poverty-research-findings-nuwara-eliya-district/