UN Habitat program extends support to housing development in North

The United Nations Human Settlements Program, UN-Habitat extends its continuous support to the housing development in Sri Lanka's North and East, the Finance Ministry has said.

UN-Habitat is extending its partnership with the European Union (EU), Government of Australia (AusAID) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) to implement the second phase of the housing recovery project for conflict affected families.

Under the grants provided by the UN-HABITAT programme in the first phase about 2,200 houses have already been constructed at a cost of US$ 103 million. Another housing scheme is underway in the North at a cost of US$ 8 million. This project will be completed by December 2013.

The second phase of project will assist 4,000 conflict affected families in the districts of Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Batticaloa to reconstruct and repair their damaged houses.

Housing construction will continue using a "Home Owner Driven" process, in which owners are granted the funds and with the technical help of UN-Habitat and SDC contribute their labor, time and resources to ensure the success and completion of the process. Over 4,400 housing units are to be completed under the programme within the next 30 months to mid- 2015.