About DRI Sri Lanka

We have been working in Sri Lanka since 2016. Our work focuses on strengthening democracy in the country by supporting civil society and monitoring online public discourse. 

What we do  

Our work in Sri Lanka focuses on four important areas: 

  • Strive to ensure fair, accessible elections and equal voting rights for all citizens across Sri Lanka.
  • Work to protect and strengthen labour, civil, and political rights, among other human rights.
  • Support the constitutional reform process and continue to work with the parliament, civil society and other social and economic actors to strengthen this structure.
  • Counter disinformation and hate speech on social media and help shape the regulatory framework for free speech online. 

How we do it 

We use a host of methods to turn our goals into reality, including: 

  • Conducting awareness raising campaigns on necessary democratic reforms, such as the need for campaign finance regulation. 
  • Monitoring social media and providing recommendations on how to regulate disinformation and hate speech online. 
  • Training civil society stakeholders to monitor, document, and promote labour rights. 
  • Producing research and comparative analysis to inform necessary reform processes and facilitating dialogues with stakeholders on these issues. 

Projects

  • Strengthening the integrity of the public discourse and related democratic reforms in Sri Lanka - DRI works to safeguard and advance critical democratic frameworks, processes and discourses in Sri Lanka, providing research, as well as holding workshops and public awareness campaigns.
  • Strengthening reconciliation in Sri Lanka by supporting regulatory framework reforms on disinformation and hate speech online and monitoring social media - DRI provides analyses and raises awareness of threats to democratic discourse on social media, focusing on reconciliation and promoting dialogue on legislative issues.