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As Sri Lanka reels from Cyclone Ditwah’s devastation, calls to revisit the ongoing International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, which critics accidental imposes punishing austerity, are increasing louder.
At slightest 638 radical died — 191 stay missing — and millions were affected by torrential rains, unprecedented flooding, and aggregate landslides that battered Sri Lanka precocious November. The clime disaster, 1 of the worst the state has witnessed, has dealt a crisp stroke to the country’s tentative recovery, 3 years aft it declared bankruptcy amid a fiscal meltdown.
News successful Frames | An land ravaged by a cyclone
Last week, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa urged the Anura Kumara Dissanayake authorities to renegotiate the IMF woody successful the aftermath of the clime catastrophe, calling for contiguous talks with the Fund to suspend oregon amend conditions that aggravate the people’s hardships.
A UNDP survey successful 2022-23 recovered that the crushing economical situation successful 2022 had near over fractional of the island’s colonisation “multidimensionally vulnerable”. Although Sri Lanka has since achieved comparative fiscal stability, the information of the country’s mediocre — deed hardest by IMF-prescribed spending cuts — has worsened amid stagnant wages, precocious surviving costs, and a visibly strained nationalist acquisition and wellness strategy they trust on.
In the aftermath of the caller earthy disaster, implicit 70 civilian nine groups and activists crossed Sri Lanka person called for the renegotiation of the IMF deal, debt, and clime justice. “While a bulk of radical are reeling nether austerity measures, including regressive taxation hikes, subsidy cuts, and inadequate societal information measures, the Government of Sri Lanka has go a captive of the ongoing Extended Fund Facility programme of the IMF,” said their statement, issued connected December 8, 2025.
“The IMF controlling authorities spending not lone restricts the quality of the authorities to respond to the ongoing humanitarian crisis, but severely impedes concern successful infrastructure, recuperating livelihoods, and adapting to further clime alteration impacts,” they contended, demanding an “urgent revision” of Sri Lanka’s indebtedness restructuring agreement, a “massive” indebtedness reduction, a halt connected subsidy removals, and an contiguous standstill connected existent and aboriginal indebtedness servicing for the country’s recovery.
Also read: As cyclone interaction unfolds, Sri Lanka braces for daunting recovery
In 2026, the authorities indispensable work indebtedness totalling implicit $2 billion, portion it tries to assistance the state retired of the deluge, whose afloat interaction is yet to beryllium ascertained. Some improvement experts person observed that betterment mightiness beryllium harder than aft the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004.
Recognising the challenge, President Dissanayake told Newsweek mag successful an interrogation published connected December 8, 2025: “Initial estimates bespeak that the harm whitethorn good beryllium beyond immoderate earthy catastrophe that our land has endured. So we volition person to work indebtedness portion simultaneously rebuilding from clime disasters. This is wherefore indebtedness sustainability frameworks for climate-vulnerable countries indispensable change.”
Weighing successful connected Sri Lanka’s predicament, erstwhile President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed precocious noted that the clime calamity makes it “impossible” for Sri Lanka to enactment aligned with the IMF programme. “When Sri Lanka faced its fiscal situation successful 2022, the IMF approved a four-year Extended Fund Facility aft months of negotiation. Yet the Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) failed to relationship for clime shocks,” helium said successful a station connected X, arsenic the cyclone’s interaction began unfolding.
Not conscionable Sri Lanka, but respective climate-vulnerable, debt-distressed countries are successful a akin plight. The Climate Vulnerable Forum — an planetary confederation of implicit 70 highly climate-vulnerable countries — has agelong called for reforming the DSA to decently worth resilience investments and earthy capital, and for a reformed G-20 Common Framework that includes automatic indebtedness standstills successful effect to clime shocks, said Mr. Nasheed, who is besides the Secretary-General of the Forum.
However, determination are nary signs yet that the Sri Lankan authorities whitethorn veer distant from the IMF programme. In fact, the authorities has sought a $200 cardinal Rapid Financing Instrument from the Fund. An IMF spokesperson confirmed that Sri Lanka’s petition for exigency financing volition instrumentality precedence implicit the scheduled 5th reappraisal of the ongoing Extended Fund Facility (EFF), which volition beryllium deferred to aboriginal adjacent year.
Meanwhile, activists person demanded that the authorities urgently prioritise equitable relief, focusing connected economically and socially marginalised communities astir affected by the disaster. “The highest [number of] casualties were reported from Badulla, Kandy, Kegalle, Matale, and Nuwara Eliya districts — areas particularly prone to landslides and location to already marginalised and susceptible working-class beverage plantation workers,” the Feminist Collective for Economic Justice, a web of feminist activists crossed Sri Lanka, said successful a statement. Demanding cosmopolitan societal extortion schemes that tin “efficiently and meaningfully supply a cushion,” the Collective called for urgent negotiations with the IMF and different creditors “to cancel indebtedness repayment and reverse austerity policies successful this situation context”.
