The North East Housing Reconstruction Program (NEHRP) is funded by the World Bank and designed to support the reconstruction & rehabilitation of the conflict affected region of the North and East Provinces of Sri Lanka. During the last two decades displacement and resettlement have been the twin concerns that faced the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) as well as the Provincial, Districts and Divisional level administration. Apart from humanitarian relief, such as food items, clothes, kitchen utensils, mats, canvases, sheets etc, war affected victims need a permanent house to live with dignity and security. A limited amount of housing Programmes in the districts were undertaken by UN agencies, donor agencies and NHDA, Ministry of Hindu Cultural Affairs and NECORD NGO's like GTZ,. However the World Bank supported housing assistance Programme is the first major housing Programme with a comprehensive coverage aimed at poor and vulnerable families.

The North East Housing Reconstruction Programme (NEHRP) is based on “Home Owner Driven Concept” and NEHRP cash grant, provide facilities (services) and motivate the beneficiaries to construct their houses by themselves.

As a part of preparing the Social Safeguard Framework, NEHRP has conducted a preliminary social impact assessment in some sample villages, primarily basic profile of the villages with respect to social and economic characteristics of the resettled villages, such as  assess social and economic condition, deal with reintegration issues as well as examine the potential impacts of the project on the indigenous communities, particularly those living in the East. The study has shown that the program will have direct relevance to two safeguard issues of the World Bank, first the indigenous peoples and second the operational policy on involuntary resettlement in the event such a need arises, even though, in most cases, families are resettled voluntarily in the place of their origin and on their own lands. These guidelines are detailed in the Social Safeguard Framework.

Another important social safeguard concern of the NEHRP is the ‘exclusion’ of potential beneficiaries from the program either triggered by social prejudices or influenced by the discretion of decision makers. The social impact assessment framework and the social auditing process outlined in the Social Safeguard Framework for NEHRP provides the check list of information for social profiling the selected villages as well as how to conduct the continuous social audit of the program. Streamlined procedures recommended by the project are aimed to bring transparency and fairness in the selection of villages and beneficiaries.