As Sri Lanka's economic crisis jeopardizes sustainable development, the looming threat to environmental conservation and natural resource management is becoming apparent. The government's shrinking fiscal space intensifies the limiting of budgets for crucial initiatives. Meanwhile, much of the private sector is yet to fully integrate nature into their business and investment decisions. To add new ideas to the debate and push the conversation further, CSF and Echelon are collaborating on a new interview series launching soon.

In the bid to build a world class city, many of Colombo’s working class poor found themselves being displaced- displaced from both places of residence and places of business, as they did not align with Colombo’s evolving identity. This article presents a methodology, following an ethnographic approach to understanding development and the problems associated with it for those whose views are seldom included in the new city identity.

There is now a growing interest in Sri Lanka on the concepts and prospects for green finance among Sri Lankan policymakers, regulators, and financial intermediaries, and some initial steps have been made to orient towards green lending. Yet, how far has actual implementation come and what are the prospects for the near-term? What are some of the critical issues that the financial sector must contend with, as it aims to support investments in a climate-resilient and nature-positive economic recovery?

As Sri Lanka looks to leverage innovative financial solutions for both public finance as well as environmental conservation objectives, a key mechanism that stakeholders must become familiar with is 'Conservations Trust Funds'. A new publication by helps unpack what Conservations Trusts are, what key features they have, why they are used, and provides some insightful examples of their deployment in other countries around the world.

Based on a suggestion at a recent Knowledge Roundtable hosted by CSF, our researchers set out to compare various innovative financial solutions available for conservation and identify which might be the most desirable and feasible to implement. It provides a starting point for industry players, regulators, policymakers, and other interested parties to make meaningful improvements to financing marine conservation in Sri Lanka

A new publication by CSF helps unpack what blue bonds are, for stakeholders in both the finance as well as environment professions, alongside Sri Lanka's interest in pursuing such instruments following other developing countries like Seychelles, Belize, Barbados, and others.