This communiqué is aimed at informing the building material suppliers, manufacturers and service providers of the potential large scale need for their products in Northern Sri Lanka.

UN-Habitat Sri Lanka is to begin the implementation of a housing programme for conflict affected families in the Northern Province with funding from the Government of India. A total 43,000 housing units are to be constructed within a 3 year period with Indian financial assistance.

UN-Habitat will support the Home Owner Driven (HOD) construction of 16,800 housing units where families are in charge of reconstructing and repairing their homes. UN-Habitat will facilitate a ‘peoples’ building  process’ by providing technical advice, monitoring quality and progress, and facilitating Village Rehabilitation Committees (VRCs).

The substantial scale of reconstruction efforts will enable the building materials manufacturers and suppliers to expand their operations to Northern Sri Lanka. They now have an opportunity to access a new market, as well as to provide quality products at reasonable rates in order to assist those vulnerable communities recovering from a 3 decade conflict. In addition to material vendors,  suppliers of construction machinery (such as block making machines) will  also have a considerable market.

The materials required will be procured directly by the beneficiary families (collectively through VRCs or individually) from local suppliers. Major suppliers in the sector may linkup with local retailers or establish own outlets while the manufacturers could establish production facilities in the local areas.

For  industry’s reference we have estimated the demand for the next three years for key building materials for 16,800 houses undertaken by UN-Habitat here. (Click to download).  The total demand of full Indian Housing Programme would be approx. 2.5 times.

UN-Habitat anticipates this early notice will be beneficial to both suppliers and beneficiaries of the housing assistance.

UN- Habitat maintains a resource database of building material manufacturers, suppliers and machine fabricators/importers, in order to support beneficiaries obtain quality products. We are also interested in information on alternative eco friendly products. If you would like to be included in our Resource Database, you may complete the registration form (Click here to download). You may also submit technical specifications and product Brochures separately. Please mail the completed registration form to: Deputy Project Manager (Programming), UN-Habitat National Project Office, No.30, Asoka Gardens, Colombo 4 (Phone No.2055310-3).