Water is essential for life and human wellbeing. It is used in both productive and consumptive activities and contributes to rural and urban livelihoods in a myriad of ways. Adequate access to water is a prerequisite for realizing the right to development. Water is a vital resource for all sectors of the national economy of Sri Lanka and for maintaining a clean and healthy environment. Enabling unimpaired access to freshwater for human consumption and domestic needs and irrigated agriculture are high priorities for national development, and are recognized as such in the Mahinda Chintana and the Action Plan for the Haritha Lanka programme. Major infrastructure programmes to provide drinking water for all by 2016 and to provide adequate irrigation water to optimise agriculture, are presented in detail, in the Randora National Integrated Development Programme. There is recognition that optimising water use requires sustainable use of Sri Lanka’s available freshwater resources, which, though yet abundant, are limited. This requires proper management of the water sector by taking into account the ramifications of climate change and possible adaptation measures during national planning. The report highlights the fact that with increasing demands on water resources due to increasing trends in population, urbanization and industrialization, questions on water allocations, conflicting water demands, issues on water quality, etc. have arisen and will continue to exacerbate with predicted changes in climate, unless they are addressed in a timely manner. Adopting climate change adaptation measures, strategically, to meet these risks can, however, enable Sri Lanka to move ahead without interruption of the country’s national development agenda.