The Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake officially launched the online version of MDGInfo Sri Lanka, a customized version of the DevInfo v5.0 database system, on 11 June 2007. The MDGInfo Sri Lanka database, developed by the Department of Census and Statistics, can be viewed on the www.statistics.gov.lk website. It contains information on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) indicators.
The online database stores, retrieves and presents trends and patterns in the form of tables, graphs and maps for tracking progress in achieving the MDGs. Sri Lanka, in spite of facing many challenges including the unresolved civil conflict, has made significant progress towards achieving many of the MDGs. However, much still remains to be done. Poverty significantly declined in Sri Lanka since independence from the 1950s to the 1970s. From the mid 1980s until the 1990s, it continued to decline but at a slower rate. But from 1990 to 2002 inequality widened, with the income of the poorest increasing by about 36 per cent and that of the richest increasing by about 49 per cent. Sri Lanka is one of the best performing countries in the South Asian region as far as primary school indicators are concerned and is on track towards achieving universal primary education. Between 2000 and 2001, the net enrolment ratio in primary education was about 97 per cent, which is much higher than the South Asian regional average and the literacy rate of 15 – 24 year olds also increased. In 2002, around 98 per cent of the children enrolled in primary school reached Grade 5 and in 2003, the net enrolment ratio in primary education was over 98 per cent.
