Since 2022, Colombo Urban Lab has been documenting the realities of Colombo’s working-class urban poor amidst Sri Lanka’s polycrisis. Drawing from ongoing qualitative research, household surveys, and long-term engagements with low-income communities across Colombo, these briefs examine how overlapping crises, including inflation, debt, climate shocks, rising living costs, and energy insecurity, continue to shape everyday urban life.
We highlight how prolonged economic and social instability creates compounding vulnerabilities for Colombo’s working-class poor. Recommendations for inclusive and equitable policy solutions that account for the dynamic nature of the polycrisis permeating all aspects of life are included in the briefs.
Nothing Left to Pawn (April 2026): Focused on how the protracted and often invisible impacts of Sri Lanka’s polycrisis have increased vulnerabilities of working-class communities to new shocks, such as natural disasters and the global energy crisis.
Falling through the Cracks (June 2024): Focused on energy poverty, education loss and declining health and nutrition of Colombo’s working-class communities.
Borrowing to Eat (September 2023): Focused on household debt and the updates on the Aswesuma experiences, highlighting the dangers of targeted support and asset-based selection.
Breaking Point (April 2023): Detailed various coping strategies households were employing to make ends meet, such as cutting back on the number of meals, not sending children to school every day, reducing electricity usage to a bare minimum, pawning jewellery and selling/mortgaging assets.
From Bad to Worse (May 2022): Focused on urgent short-term recommendations for state support to account for the dynamic nature of the economic crisis permeating all aspects of life during the height of the economic crisis.
Building on past work and through continued research, Colombo Urban Lab seeks to contribute to more responsive, inclusive, and people-centred urban policy conversations grounded in the realities of those most affected.
