Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya met the Executive Board delegation of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) at Temple Trees on Thursday following their three-day visit to Sri Lanka, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement reported by Ada Derana.
Welcoming the delegation, the Prime Minister expressed appreciation for UNICEF’s continued support to Sri Lanka, particularly in advancing the rights and well-being of children, and commended the agency’s timely assistance and recovery efforts extended in response to Cyclone Ditwah.
Discussions focused on strengthening legal protections for children, including measures to prevent all forms of violence against children and address child malnutrition.
Dr. Amarasuriya said the visit presented a valuable opportunity to further strengthen collaboration between UNICEF and the Government of Sri Lanka, and emphasised that while the country has a strong policy and legal framework, attention must be paid to ensuring effective implementation and enforcement in addressing existing challenges affecting children and vulnerable communities.
UNICEF representatives commended the government’s ongoing education reform process, and expressed willingness to continue assistance to the government in achieving outcomes and promoting child-sensitive programmes.
Sri Lanka has been a UNICEF programme partner since the 1950s, and the agency was named in the country’s recent acceptance of a new global charter on child care reforms that recognises kinship and foster care over institutional placement. The Thursday meeting also follows the May release of new Family Health Bureau data showing roughly 20 percent of Sri Lankan schoolchildren are malnourished — a measure that has hardened since the 2022 economic crisis and remains the most pressing child-policy benchmark for the NPP government.
