Divert defence allocations on development - President [April 07 2011]

President Mahinda Rajapaksa called South Asia to divert huge expenditure spent on conflicts and wars towards development, research and technology to reduce poverty and suffering.

He said Sri Lanka’s humanitarian initiatives have enabled the government not just to end conflicts but to divert resources earlier spent on conflicts towards welfare and development.

Delivering the inaugural address at the Ministerial Summit of the South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN IV) yesterday he said “ Public expenditure on rural centric initiatives and on farmers, on children and similar expenditures on the provision of water, sanitation and clean environment are more productive and beneficial to the welfare of the citizens. Therefore, at a ministerial conference such as this, our determination should be to appeal to the world to divert their defense expenditure to development”.

“I strongly believe that economic growth alone is not beneficial to the people. It must produce wide spread benefits to the people while improving basic needs of the society,” he said.Sri Lanka already has a commitment to provide universal access to water and good sanitation by the year 2020. We are confident of achieving this, as we have already achieved the Millennium Development Goals in a key area such as the lowest maternal mortality rate in South and South East Asia", he said.