Developing an urban management performance assessment criterion for municipalities of Sri Lanka

Abstract

The current status of urban development in Sri Lanka requires managing growth and issues of cities. However, specific measurement criteria and related indicators are not yet identified to evaluate urban management by the central government or local government levels. Hence this study seeks to identify the relevant criteria, indicators and a method for assessing the urban management performance of municipalities in Sri Lanka. Based on Literature review, five criteria and 25 indicators were selected considering their applicability in the context of Sri Lanka. The Full Permutation Polygon Synthetic Indicator Method (FPPSI) was applied to synthesize indicators and the Synthetic indicator has been used to show the performance of each criterion in terms of urban service delivery. Colombo Municipal Council (CMC), Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte Municipal Council (SJKMC) and Moratuwa Municipal Council (MMC) have been selected as the case studies for this research. Although selected cases are within the Colombo Metropolitan Region, these municipalities achieved the Low5 or “Moderate” level of synthetic indicator (SR<= 0.50) that shows the low level of municipal service delivery of Sri Lanka as a whole. This research lays the platform to evaluate the functional performance of Municipal Councils to guide the future scenario and to make decisions at the grass root level for managing urban issues in the country. This research also helps the government to know the current trends of development impact and to take necessary policy level decisions to guide the economic growth in a correct direction with the political manifestoes