Construction of essential infrastructure contributes to upgrade the communities’ quality of life through enhanced access to basic services. Community infrastructure is a catalyst in both upgrading underserved settlements and in assisting recovery from disaster.

The highest priority for UN-Habitat’s Water and Sanitation Programme is improving access to safe drinking water and helping to provide adequate sanitation to communities living in both rural and urban areas. World leaders meeting at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 committed themselves to attaining the Millennium Development Goal 7, target 10 which aims to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg added another target: to halve by 2015, the proportion of people who do not have access to basic sanitation.

The main aim of the UN-Habitat Water and Sanitation Programme is to contribute to the achievement of the internationally agreed goals related to water and sanitation in human settlements with particular focus on the rural community and urban poor, in order to facilitate equitable social, economic and environmental development.

Currently, UN-Habitat is assisting communities to construct infrastructure facilities across more than 1500 villages including roads, culverts and bridges, disaster resilient housing, community physical infrastructure, rainwater harvesting facilities, dug wells and tube wells, ponds, mini-dam, gravity flow water piping system, water purification systems for communal, sanitary latrines and hand washing facilities for schools.

Relevant

• Shae Thot “The Way Forward”
• Project Brochure: Shae Thot “The Way Forward”
• Photo Book: Shae Thot “The Way Forward”
• The Programme for Development and Rehabilitation of Community in Ethnic Minority Area, Myanmar
• Project Brochure: The Programme for Development & Rehabilitation of Community in Ethnic Minority Areas in Myanmar
• Photo Book: The Programme for Development and Rehabilitation of Community in Ethnic Minority Area, Myanmar
• Safe and Sustainable Access to WASH for Rural Communities (SASA)
• Community Water Supply and Sanitation Recovery (CWSSR)
• Project Brochure: Community Water Supply and Sanitation Recovery (CWSSSR)
• Coastal Communities Livelihood Assistance Programme (CLAP)
• Project Brochure: Coastal Communities Livelihood Assistance Programme (CLAP)