Centre for Environmental Health Engineering to assist UN in humanitarian relief efforts

UNICEF is leading the reform process in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector and has been mandated to provide a focal point for co-ordinating activities in large scale complex emergencies.

The Cluster Group includes almost all of the world’s major international agencies and relief agencies, including the Red Cross movement, and will meet at regular intervals throughout the year. CEHE’s involvement with relief agencies, the WHO and UN agencies over the years has clearly established it as a centre of excellence in water and sanitation matters associated with humanitarian relief operations. Very few Centres have a similar range of expertise in water and sanitation which is based on both research and applications in the field. In recent years CEHE staff and postgraduate researchers have assisted relief agency operations in Rwanda, Aceh, Haiti, Pakistan, Chad and Sri Lanka.

Currently CEHE is testing water treatment systems for Oxfam at its Shalford Pilot Plant and these activities will extend to include evaluating systems for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), Barcelona. At the same time the UK Register of Engineers for Disaster Relief (RedR) is seeking to host further training programmes on the University of Surrey Campus.