Conflict Prevention: A Sri Lankan Case Study

CONFLICT PREVENTION – A Sri Lankan Case Study ABSTRACT Author: Samitha Hettige, Ph.D Email: samitha66 @ hotmail.com A review of literature has indicated that the skill of conflict prevention through resources management amongst Sri Lankans has not been fully understood. Sri Lanka suffered economic development setbacks due to the bloody civil war for thirty years. The conflict ended with a military victory in May 2009. Lack of understanding of the perceptual factors associated with conflict prevention through resource management skill must have played a pivotal role initiating the thirty year bloody war. Military victory alone will not help Sri Lanka to achieve economic development goals. Ability to manage resources for the same goal preventing conflicts by the public is important. The objective of this research is to examine how Sri Lankan public manage their resources to prevent a conflict in the future. Face to face interviews with fifteen persons belonging to the three main ethnic groups living in the Colombo district were conducted to analyze how they manage variables; finance, energy, water, education, media, information and ICT resources to prevent a conflict. A questionnaire was developed based on the interviews and circulated among a 390 randomly selected samples in the Colombo district. Economically Colombo suffered worst during the civil war as well as Colombo represents all ethnic groups. These findings suggest that by understanding the bridge between human behaviours on resources management can be used to prevent conflicts and implement sustainable development plans in a society, especially after an extensive conflict affecting the society on the whole. Keywords: Management Skills and Disaster Preparedness. ISBN 978-955-41172-0-4