Inclusion of marginalised communities during post-disaster context in Sri Lanka: what methodology?

Research methodology is a general research strategy that defines how research should be carried out. It includes a system of beliefs and philosophical assumptions that shape the understanding of the research questions and underpins the choice of research methods. Additionally, research methodology is an integral part of any research and helps to ensure consistency between chosen tools, techniques, and underlying philosophy. Therefore, this article shows the perspectives to choose the most effective methodology to increase the inclusion of marginalised communities during the post-disaster phase in Sri Lanka. A systematic literature review comprising of 61 articles adopted as the best-suited methodology for this research. The philosophical position of this research is interpretivism, whereas the abductive approach is utilised for theory development. Hence, more than one qualitative data collection method is used, and this research adopts a multi-method qualitative approach. Furthermore, case study and survey strategies are chosen as the most suitable strategies for this research. Two Grama Niladhari divisions affected by natural disasters in Sri Lanka are selected as the cases. Data collection techniques adopted in this research are literature review, structured interviews, desk study, stakeholder interviews, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and expert validation interviews. Data analysis techniques are literature synthesis, relative importance index, stakeholder analysis, and code-based content analysis. Furthermore, the article discusses how researchers achieve the reliability and validity of research findings and ethical considerations

Policy-level consideration on marginalised communities in the post-disaster context: a desk study

Natural disasters have a disproportionate influence on the lives of those impacted, with the most marginalised often bearing the brunt of the repercussions. As a result, marginalised communities should be expressly considered in post-disaster policy development. While the international community has adopted the concepts of resilience and inclusion, marginalised communities are frequently disregarded in post-disaster management. There is a dearth of literature on the engagement of marginalised communities in Sri Lanka's post-disaster context. Moreover, the policies to support the marginalised communities need to be reviewed to explore the extent to which such policies are implemented to benefit the disadvantaged groups in a disaster situation. Therefore, this paper aims to review the existing policies to improve the engagement of marginalised communities during the post-disaster context in Sri Lanka. To achieve the aim, a comprehensive desk study on significant global and national policies was carried out. Through the desk study, the policies and frameworks related to disaster management were explored in order to identify the inclusion of marginalised communities in the post-disaster context. The policies related to marginalised communities were further explored in order to identify the inclusion of them in post-disaster situations. Finally, the study confirmed that a refinement of the policies in the Sri Lankan context is crucial. Furthermore, as a way forward, the study suggested assessing the current level of implementation of existing policies as well as barriers to implementation in order to increase the inclusion of marginalised communities in Sri Lanka's post-disaster context

Sufficiency of the policies related to construction industry in Sri Lanka

Public policy on construction will reflect the economic, political, social, and cultural status of Sri Lanka. The construction industry in Sri Lanka has faced many issues in the recent past because of unsuccessful government policies. Therefore, an effective national policy for the construction industry has become necessary. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the existing construction policies. The empirical data required were collected by interviewing ten experts, who were selected using snowball sampling. The collected data were manually analysed using content analysis. The findings revealed that the National Policy on Construction (NPC), formulated by the National Advisory Council on Construction, which was set up under the Construction Industry Development Act No. 33 of 2014, is the only construction policy that has been formulated in Sri Lanka so far. NPC contains eighteen (18) policies applied for both the public and private sectors. Although according to the literature, policies in Sri Lanka change along with the change of governments, the study revealed that NPC, which has remained unchanged since its formulation in 2014, is still applicable in the country

Gender and disability inclusion in post-disaster rebuilding ‘build back better’ programmes in Sri Lanka: a literature review

In the last decade, many South Asian developing countries have suffered natural disasters. Severe disaster destruction results in an overwhelming need to rebuild housing and infrastructure within a brief amount of time. United Nation Development Programme has sought to make this reconstruction program a "Build Back Better (BBB)" opportunity, hence gender inequality and marginalisation of people with disabilities remain a problem in many countries. Although the international community has sought to promote this resilience and inclusion, the Post-Disaster Rebuilding (PDR) process still overlooks these sectors of society and their needs. Therefore, this paper aims to bring in literature synthesis addressing gender and disability inclusion in PDR ‘BBB’ programmes in Sri Lanka. Besides, involvement in the mitigation of vulnerability and community resilience to disaster risks and relocation was found to play a significant role. Vulnerability and the risk of disasters can be dramatically reduced by ensuring a culture of disaster prevention and resilience for all segments of populations, particularly rural areas, girls and women, and the disabled. All aspects of socially inclusive, formal, and non-formal commitments are important to take their desires and requirement into consideration

Issues in sustainable water management of irrigation systems in Sri Lanka

As the largest consumer of water, the irrigation sector has to play a critical role in managing water resources. Nevertheless, the current water management practices of irrigation are not achieving the benefits of sustainable use of water. The failure in achieving the expected performance of irrigation infrastructures urges the need for Sustainable Water Management (SWM). Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the issues in existing Irrigation Water Management (IWM) practices towards SWM of irrigation systems in Sri Lanka. The research aim was approached through a qualitative survey strategy. Expert interviews were conducted as the data collection technique. Twelve experts were selected through a purposive sampling strategy, who had experience in water management and technical development in irrigation systems. The collected data were analysed using the manual content analysis method. Findings of the research revealed that though numerous techniques are being practiced in IWM, there is a failure in water management in the current context. It was identified, water losses throughout the system, improper system operation and poor maintenance of structures, inefficient practices of irrigation, dis-integration of system components and lack of government intervention as major issues to achieve sustainable use of water in the case of irrigation. The identification and assessment of issues provide a range of their impacts to reveal the constraints in achieving SWM of irrigation

A culture-based solution for construction and demolition waste management in Sri Lanka: a literature review

Construction projects consume bulky amounts of materials, natural resources, and energy and at the same time generate unacceptable level of solid wastes. There are strategies implemented in order manage the construction and demolition wastes in Sri Lanka. However, most of those have become unsuccessful due to the policy makers being unable to consider the cultural factors stemming from socio-economic factors, while implementing such strategies. Thus, this paper aims at deriving a culture-based solution for construction and demolition waste management in Sri Lanka. This aim is achieved through a broad literature review. As per the extent literature, the main cultural manifestations describing the cultural context of Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste management include values, attitudes and behaviours. Accordingly, Sri Lankans hold many positive values, however majority of attitudes and behaviours are of negative in nature. According to literature, these cultural manifestations exists in a hierarchical order with attitudes being influenced by values and behaviours being influenced by attitudes. Nevertheless, positive values of Sri Lankans are not reflected through the attitudes and behaviours of C&D waste management, requiring thorough empirical studies to justify the dynamisms of value-attitude-behaviour hierarchy in Sri Lankan context. In addition, if these cultural manifestations related to C&D waste to be managed, a reverse cycle to the value-attitude-behaviour hierarchy should be considered, which is introduced as ‘cycle of culture management’ through this paper