UN-Habitat Meets New Housing Minister
20th February 2015, Colombo: Hon. Sajith Premadasa, the Minister of Housing and Samurdhi met with a delegation of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) officials lead by Mr. Tim McNair, Chief Technical Advisor, at the Ministry premises in Sethsiripaya, Battaramulla recently.
The officials discussed the status of the housing sector, planned interventions and opportunities for collaboration. The Government of Sri Lanka has just announced an ambitious programme to build homes for 50,000 of the most vulnerable families with urgent permanent shelter needs.
UN-Habitat has a long history of cooperation with the Government of Sri Lanka in housing and human settlement development, dating back to 1978. Key highlights of the cooperation include preparation and implementation of the Master Plan for Colombo (1978-1983) and technical assistance to the Government’s “Gam Udawa” programme which resulted in the construction of two and a half million houses (1984 – 1993).
At present, UN-Habitat is supporting the Government of Sri Lanka to prepare the National Report for Habitat III – United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development due to take place in Quito, Ecuador, in October 2016.
Building upon the National Housing Policy and Disaster Management Plan, UN-Habitat is assisting the Government to formulate a Construction Guideline for the Housing Sector incorporating Climate Change and Disaster Risk Resilience, as well as eco-friendly and alternative low cost construction technologies.
Within Sri Lanka’s Northern and Eastern Provinces, UN-Habitat is supporting conflict affected families to reconstruct 31,500 damaged houses and community infrastructure facilities. Over 24,000 families have already been resettled into complete homes within sustainable settlements.
Mr. K.A. Thilakaratne, Additional Secretary of the Ministry, Mr. L.S. Palansooriya, Chairman of the National Housing Development Authority and Mr. I.A Hameed, UN-Habitat National Project Manager for housing projects also participated in the discussions.