This paper explores how social welfare contributes to societal development and poverty elimination in Sri Lanka. Despite achieving strong human development indicators through long-standing universal education and healthcare, targeted poverty programmes like Samurdhi have struggled with inefficiency and political interference. The recent shift to the Aswesuma programme aims to improve targeting but faces significant implementation hurdles. The objective is to systematically review the performance of Sri Lanka’s welfare system, assessing its impact on poverty, equity, and community participation. The methodology is based on secondary data analysis, synthesising evidence from government reports, academic studies, and evaluations to identify trends and gaps. Key findings show that while universal services effectively reduced inequality, targeted cash transfers were plagued by high inclusion/exclusion errors and political co-option. The economic crisis dramatically reversed poverty gains, highlighting system fragility. Genuine community participation in welfare delivery remains limited, often reduced to tokenistic consultation rather than meaningful empowerment. Suggestions include depoliticizing beneficiary selection, indexing benefits to inflation, strengthening the Social Registry, and integrating cash support with livelihood training for sustainable graduation. Fostering genuine participatory governance in welfare projects is crucial for building ownership and accountability. In conclusion, Sri Lanka’s welfare system has been foundational for development but requires profound reform to eliminate poverty. Success depends on protecting universal services while making targeted programmes more effective, transparent, and genuinely participatory to ensure resilience against future shocks.
A et al. (Fri,) studied this question.