Nalaka Gunawardene: Profile

Trained as a science communicator, Nalaka Gunawardene was an award-winning journalist in Sri Lanka for several years before turning to development communication at Asian regional level. In both endeavours his approach is: to explain the science in non-technical language; acknowledge socio-political complexities; encourage public discussion of key issues; and seek solutions.

As a journalist, Nalaka has worked with English language national newspapers, as well as radio and TV, in a range of roles including news reporter, feature writer, science editor, TV/radio host and commissioning editor of documentaries on science and development. He was also a foreign correspondent covering Sri Lanka and Maldives for specialist publications in Hong Kong, India, Japan and the UK. His op-eds on science communication have appeared in English newspapers and magazines across Asia. He has been a columnist for 3 national newspapers during 2011-2020.

From 2003 to 2010, Nalaka served as Director of TVE Asia Pacific, a non-for-profit media company engaged in producing and disseminating journalistic video and online content on science, development, sustainability and ICTs.

As a development communications consultant since 2010, he has worked with development programmes and projects related to disaster risk reduction, climate change adaption, integrated water resource management, sustainable agriculture, urban waste management, and cleaner production. In this process, his services have been engaged by various regional and inter-governmental organisations including the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) in Bangkok, IUCN – the International Union for Conservation of Nature, LIRNEasia, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Office for Asia, UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), World Health Organisation (WHO) and World Bank. He has designed communication strategies for research institutes and development agencies, and also helped evaluate communication impacts.

From 2017 to 2020, Nalaka worked with IMS (International Media Support) as their Sri Lanka advisor, supporting a broad range of national level activities in media development, journalist training, audience research and media policy advocacy. In 2019-2020, he led action on a countrywide audience survey that derived many insights on Sri Lankan’s choices of local, national and international sources for news and the role of public trust in news sources. This IMS study was published in 2021: https://www.mediasupport.org/publication/consuming-news-in-turbulent-times/

Nalaka Gunawardene Wikipedia entry

NalakaG Twitter feed

My Sunday column in Ceylon Today newspaper (2012-14)

My Sunday column in Ravaya newspaper (in Sinhala)