Despite Sri Lanka’s achievement of Millennium Development Goal one, the halving of extreme poverty, poverty remains in the Northeast of Sri Lanka, which has a large Tamil population, Britain's parliament heard on Wednesday.
Responding to a question by Labour MP Sarah Champion, who asked about the Department for International Development’s assessment on the levels of poverty amongst Tamils in Sri Lanka, Minister of State for the department, Alan Duncan, said:
“Sri Lanka has met millennium development goal No. 1 which calls for the halving of extreme poverty, and is on track to meet most other MDGs. Poverty remains in areas of northern and eastern Sri Lanka where large numbers of Tamils live. We do not have a breakdown by ethnic group.”