How CERF-supported solar power is transforming life and dignity in Myanmar’s Dry Zone

For years, 43-year-old Daw Pyae Yee shaped her days around the sound of a diesel engine. Every morning before sunrise, she queued with her children at her village’s tall, ageing borehole in Kin Mon Chon, northwestern Myanmar, hoping to fill buckets, plastic jugs, and metal cans before the sputtering engine overheated or the electricity cut out again.

“There were days when the engine refused to start,” she remembered. “If the grid failed, there was nothing we could do. No water for drinking, no water for cooking. You just waited… and hoped.”

That changed when UNICEF, through critical funding from the OCHA-managed UN Global Emergency Fund (CERF), helped install a fully solar-powered water system bringing clean, reliable water directly to every household compound in the village.

The new system, combining upgraded boreholes, a climate-resilient solar pump system, a new water tower and a household distribution network, replaced costly diesel and removed the village’s dependence on an unstable power grid. For the first time, families could open a tap and expect reliable water, day and night.

“For us, this is dignity,” said 63-year-old Daw Than Htway, a long-time member of the Water User Committee. “Now when I turn the tap, water comes. I still can’t believe it.”

In one of Myanmar’s driest regions, where extreme heat and deep groundwater have long driven water insecurity, the impact was immediate. Families no longer queue in the heat. Children spend their mornings in school instead of carrying buckets. Farmers reach their fields earlier.

“When my daughter asked for a glass of water,” Daw Pyae Yee said, “I didn’t have to think. I just opened the tap.”

CERF support also ensured the system’s sustainability. Community members were trained to manage the solar infrastructure, oversee water tariffs transparently, and implement Climate-Resilient Water Safety Plans – preparing them for extreme heat, unpredictable rainfall, or sudden breakdowns.

Families contributed labour and resources to build the system themselves, embedding responsibility and resilience at the heart of the project.

“We built this together,” said U Tun Tun Win, Chairperson of the Water User Committee. “And because of that, we will maintain it together.”

Read how CERF-supported action helped restore dignity, safety and climate resilience for communities in Kin Mon Chon: The day water came home: How solar power and community strength reshaped life in northwestern Myanmar.

Posted January 2026.

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