About Us

About the Pathfinder Foundation

The Pathfinder Foundation is an independent, non-partisan research and advocacy think-tank whose primary focus is on policy research and action-oriented policy reform. The Foundation was incorporated in 2008, under the leadership of its Founder, Milinda Moragoda. Over the years, it has established and built a wide network of international and local partners and stakeholders worldwide. Through its regular publications, forums, conferences and advocacy work, it has stimulated public discussion on current issues, enhanced economic reform, and fostered local, bilateral, and multilateral dialogue and understanding. Today the Pathfinder Foundation remains at the forefront of policy reform and plays a catalytic role as an advocate for important economic, social and political development, as well as strategic and security matters that affect Sri Lanka and the South Asian region. The Pathfinder Foundation also concentrates on tackling environmental and ocean-related issues pertaining to the Indian Ocean in general, and the Bay of Bengal in particular. The Foundation has succeeded in creating a culture of open discussion on a broad range of issues, and provides an important and trusted platform for Track 1.5 and Track II discussions at the local, regional, and international level.

Chairman’s Message

Relaunching the Pathfinder Foundation’s website is a momentous event. The Foundation was established in 2008 to further primarily research and studies on economic and social matters relating to Sri Lanka. In this process, the Foundation has provided support to policy-makers, hosted conferences and symposia, and published research papers.

Over the years, the Foundation has broadened its areas of interest to improve bilateral relations with countries that are economically and politically important to Sri Lanka. In the process, the Foundation has established links with leading think tanks in several countries and founded country and subject-focused centres, namely: The China-Sri Lanka Cooperation Studies Centre, The Centre for Indo-Lanka Initiatives, The Centre for the Law of the Sea and The Hafez Centre for Cultural Understanding. Another area of increasing interest to the Foundation is security and strategic issues. During the past several years, the Foundation has conducted events promoting regional cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). In this context, the Foundation held two regional conferences on the Bay of Bengal in 2017 and 2018, as well as launched the ‘Indian Ocean Security Conference in 2020, a cyclical event with international participation. Although the COVID-19 pandemic restricted our activities to some extent, this did not deter the Foundation from continuing its activities through virtual and hybrid formats, which had the advantage of permitting us to further widen and expand the involvement of regional and international partners in the activities of the Foundation.

With the launching of this new website, the Foundation is now able to better showcase its activities and reach out to a wider audience including policy-makers, academics, think tanks, and like-minded institutions and the public-at-large, globally.