UNHCR to Improve Water Facilities in Nimroz

Kabul: Up to 30,000 people will benefit from cash for work projects which include the rehabilitation or construction of water facilities in 10 villages of Chakhansor district in Nimroz province over the next three months.

A partnership agreement for the cash for work project was signed recently with Relief International, an international non-governmental organization. The projects have just started. They aim to improve water facilities in areas of Nimroz province and to provide temporary employment for returnees.

Specifically, the projects involve the cleaning of a 16-km-long irrigation canal and the digging of 16 shallow wells in three districts of Nimroz province to improve access to safe drinking water. At the request of the local population, a 6.3-km protection wall will also be built to prevent possible floods in five villages of Chakhansor district in the province.

Since 2002 UNHCR has helped cleaned many canals in different provinces of the country aiming to provide irrigation water to thousands of families many among them returnees from Iran and Pakistan.

Separately, through the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), UNHCR is helping to construct or repair 375 water points and 750 household latrines in 2008. The refugee agency has allocated nearly US$1 million for water and sanitation programmes this year.

Since 2002, over 9,000 water points have been completed, mainly in the areas of high refugee return.

The Relief International projects will offer short-term employment for thousands of people – mainly locals and returnees in the area – for at least three months. They will be hired to work as daily workers and will receive $4 per day.

Budgeted at almost $60,000, these small-scale projects will have a positive impact in the safe reintegration of returnees and on the daily lives of the local population in Nimroz.

More than 4.2 million Afghans have returned home since 2002 when the assisted voluntary return operation was launched. There are currently some 1.8 million registered Afghans living in Pakistan while some 1 million in Iran.