Following a request from the Government of Sri Lanka, UNESCO’s Director-General confirmed a coordinated emergency assistance.
As part of the Heritage Emergency Fund, UNESCO is building the capacities within the Department of National Archives and providing specialized vacuum packing machines to handle and restore the damaged documentary heritage – an estimated 200,000 documents stored at the National Archives in Colombo and Kandy. UNESCO will also conduct the Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) for public records and archives, and built heritage in the flood affected areas.
Building on its longstanding expertise in terms of protecting the continuity of learning, UNESCO will repair structural damages to restore safe learning environments in 63 affected pre-schools in the Colombo district, and provide temporary teaching arrangements, accommodation and care for students. Emergency rehabilitation will also support primary schools in isolated areas of Aranayake, Kegalle district.
UNESCO is also reinstating mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) into education systems in affected areas – impacting approximately 28,900 teachers and school principals.
Finally, UNESCO is reinforcing science-based disaster risk reduction and enhancing preparedness for future climate-related hazards. This will include the assessment of technical and institutional gaps in flood and reservoir operations, conducting targeted hydrological risk assessments in the Mahaweli, Kelani, Walawe, and Menik river basins, and strengthening the use of AI-assisted forecasting tools to improve flood early warning systems (FEWS).
UNESCO is committed to supporting Sri Lanka beyond immediate recovery, by ensuring continuity of learning in safe and inclusive environments, safeguarding cultural heritage, and advancing science-based disaster risk reduction. Our goal is to help the country build back better, embedding resilience into education, culture, and science to reduce vulnerability and strengthen preparedness for future hazards.
UNESCO’s intervention in Sri Lanka is made possible with the generous support of its donors: the Principality of Andorra, Canada, the Republic of Estonia, the French Republic, the Republic of Lithuania, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Principality of Monaco, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Kingdom of Norway, the Republic of Poland, the Qatar Fund for Development, the Republic of Serbia, the Slovak Republic, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, ANA Holdings INC, the Republic of Korea and Japan.
