Access to water at the heart of Chadian refugee camps

In Chad, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is facing one of the most massive humanitarian crises currently underway. The civil war in neighboring Sudan has driven nearly 8 million people to flee, of whom just over 900,000 have crossed the border into Chad*. As a Stand-By Partner of the UN agency, the Veolia Foundation is committed to supporting the UNHCR on the issue of access to water. It works alongside the UNHCR.

Two missions by Veoliaforce experts, volunteers from the Veolia Foundation, provided continuous support for five weeks. The aim was to audit a dozen camps around Farchana, in the east of the country, and make recommendations to improve access to water. David Maisonneuve, Veolia's Distribution Networks Manager, was called in to qualify the needs, prioritize the emergencies and propose an action plan. Sylvain Mousset, Service Manager, followed him in the field to specify each work program and gather all the data needed to launch infrastructure construction.

The recommendations formulated, confronted with the situation in the field, led to changes in the situation in 4 of the 12 camps audited. A common objective for the UNHCR and the Veolia Foundation: to improve the quantity and quality of water available.