No COVID-19 deaths have been confirmed yesterday (05) by the Director-General of Health Services.

Accordingly, the current COVID-19 death toll remains at 16,828.

On the instructions of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry has offered assistance of rescue services to the Foreign Minister of Türkiye following the two earthquakes that struck the country today, the Presidential Media Division says.

Representatives of the United Nations Development Program said that Sri Lanka will be supported in achieving the country’s Sustainable Development Goals.

They stated this during a recent discussion held at the Presidential Secretariat about adding sustainable development goals to budgeting.

The discussion was chaired by President’s Senior Adviser on Climate Change Mr Ruwan Wijewardena and President’s Adviser on Environment and Sustainable Finance Professor Ananda Malavitantri, representing the United Nations Development Program, its Resident Representative Azusa Kubota, Budget Consultant, Adviser Asif Shah, Integration Specialist Ms Dulani Sirisena and Afraa Mohamed, Policy, Research and Engagement Assistant, were present at the discussion.

The rationale for integrating sustainable development goals into public financial management systems was discussed at length and the main benefits of development goals and budgeting were also discussed.

Attention was also paid to providing an effective basis for budget decisions with improved data to reduce fiscal space and fiscal gaps, assist government and donor negotiations by introducing efficient mechanisms to protect social sector spending, identify funding gaps and under-resource priorities to support effective targeting of resources.

Further, promoting policy coherence and assisting in getting more value for money from public investments, raising public awareness of government actions by ensuring transparency in public financial allocations to achieve sustainable development goals, benefits such as providing a proper system for resource mobilization, and identifying priorities in the annual budget through sustainable development goals/climate/gender-based budget targets, were also discussed at length.

In addition, the practical problems arising within that process and how to prevent those problems were also extensively examined in this discussion.

Representing the Sustainable Development Council, Director General Chamindri Saparamdu and Assistant Director Nadika Amarasinghe, Presidential Coordinating Secretary Rajitha Abeygunasekara and Director Sajana Suriyaarachchi also participated in this discussion.