In recent years, few countries have been dealt quite as bad a hand as Sri Lanka. There’s been civil war and natural disasters, terrorist attacks and political crises. It all feels doubly unfair because the south Asian island is so beloved. No one dithers over it; in fact, no one speaks badly of it at all. Thankfully, Sri Lanka now seems to have entered a much-deserved period of stability and, in January, it set a new tourist record.

After the 2019 Easter bombing atrocity — in which three churches and three hotels were targeted in the capital, Colombo — Miguel Cunat, a partner at Sustainable Sri Lanka, found himself in conversation with ‘a gentleman who was working with the EU’ and on the hunt for a standout project to fund, one that would require the involvement of local communities and h

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