{"id":378545,"date":"2018-09-25T16:22:08","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T15:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/un-expert-advises-sri-lankan-government-about-social-impact-of-austerity-measures\/"},"modified":"2018-09-25T16:22:08","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T15:22:08","slug":"un-expert-advises-sri-lankan-government-about-social-impact-of-austerity-measures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/un-expert-advises-sri-lankan-government-about-social-impact-of-austerity-measures\/","title":{"rendered":"UN expert advises Sri Lankan government about social impact of austerity measures"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>UN expert advises Sri Lankan government about social impact of austerity measures<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Saman Gunadasa<br \/>\n    <br \/>25 September 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>UN Human Rights Council official Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky ended a nine-day visit to Sri Lanka earlier this month. Bohoslavsky, whose job title is \u201cUN Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and human rights,\u201d offers \u201cadvice\u201d to indebted governments in less developed countries.<\/p>\n<p>Bohoslavsky\u2019s visit and his preliminary \u201cend of mission\u201d statement are an indication of international concern about growing popular opposition to Colombo\u2019s implementation of International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictated austerity measures. According to the Central Bank, Sri Lanka will have to pay $4 billion per year until 2022 just to meet its current external debt liabilities.<\/p>\n<p>In the past year, protests and strikes have involved railway, postal, health, power, university and plantation workers for higher wages and improved working conditions. Poor farmers and fishermen have also demonstrated against cut backs and increased fuel and production costs. University students are involved in ongoing protests, in particular against the privatisation of education.<\/p>\n<p>Bohoslavsky called on the government to assess \u201cthe human rights impact of both its economic reform policies and infrastructure projects\u201d and warned that \u201csocial spending should not be cut to repay growing debts.\u201d Spending cuts, he said, \u201cshould at least be compensated through cash transfers targeting those in need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The UN expert said recent IMF directed \u201creforms\u201d slashing energy and farming subsidies, \u201cmight have an adverse effect\u201d on the livelihood of fishermen, farmers and rural communities. Electricity prices have been deregulated and the cost of fuel is determined by an automatic&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/09\/25\/unsl-s25.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 UN expert advises Sri Lankan government about social impact of austerity measures By Saman Gunadasa 25 September 2018 UN Human Rights Council official Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky ended a nine-day visit to Sri Lanka earlier this month. Bohoslavsky, whose job title is \u201cUN Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and human rights,\u201d offers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-378545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}