Regulatory Mapping in Local Governance and the Economic Governance Index in Sri Lanka

Abstract

In Sri Lanka, the role of local authority is important today more than ever after the government aligned its development agenda with United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals and implemented local economic governance (LEG) program. LEG program envisaged to build public-private partnerships at the local authority level. As part of the LEG program, the Asia Foundation (TAF) carried out economic governance index (EGI) study in 19 local authorities to understand government-influenced constraints to economic growth at the local level. Based on the findings, TAF introduced regulatory mapping to inform the public and business community about the services, authority, and responsibilities of local authorities and their role in creating an enabling environment for private enterprises to flourish. According to EGI study, Puttalam has the weakest urban council (UC) among the 48 local authorities which were selected for the study. This chapter evaluates the present performance of Puttalam Urban Council using the ten subindices of EGI study. It was presumed that the impact made by the intervention could be conspicuous in a locality where the pre-intervention performance is weak. The study also used a topic guide to facilitate focus group discussions to capture qualitative outcomes and challenges. Further, this chapter also examines the regulatory mapping process along with its strengths as an innovative tool.