Rupees and Revolution: Sri Lanka, 2022 SRI LANKA
DELEGATION SIZE Single
EXECUTIVES
- Benjamin Tytell (he/him)
- Talia Crichlow (she/her)
- Phoebe Burgis (she/her)
In March 2022, two decades of meteoric growth was wiped out in an instant. The Sri Lankan Rupee collapsed after decades of political corruption and economic malpractice suddenly caught up with the island nation all at once. But Sri Lanka’s citizens took advantage of the instability to take down their government, occupying official buildings and scaring once-powerful rulers into self-imposed exile. You are the members of the new government the people chose; you are here to clean up the mess.
Sri Lanka has calmed down somewhat since Spring, and in this moment of national reckoning Sri Lanka has the chance to rebuild itself from the ground up. Now that its most corrupt leaders are gone and their enablers have been sufficiently terrified, Sri Lanka has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape its national political and economic institutions for the betterment of all of Sri Lanka—not just those at the top.
In the first two sessions of committee, you must rewrite the country’s political rules, drafting a new amendment that protects Sri Lanka’s democracy from decaying back into decadent corruption. You must also begin the treacherous road towards economic recovery, negotiating deals with international lenders like the IMF and various world powers to provide a fiscal lifeline without giving up too much in the fine print. Once you have sketched your path towards recovery, you must spend the final three sessions of committee working to balance between solving the island’s numerous immediate crises before they get out of hand and keeping to the decisions that will help the country recover in the long term.
In Rupees and Revolution, you are all stuck on this island together. The consequences of your decisions will determine whether Sri Lanka can escape its death spiral towards a brighter future or whether it will continue to sink further into debt and chaos. Sri Lanka has recovered from far worse crises before, and with patience, wit and ingenuity, you can ensure that it recovers from this one, too.