Slum-dwellers who make up a third of the world's urban population often live no better - if not worse - than rural people, a United Nations report says. Anna Tibaijuka, head of the UN Habitat agency, urged governments and donors to take more seriously the problems of at least a billion people.
Worst hit is Sub-Saharan Africa where 72% of urban inhabitants live in slums rising to nearly 100% in some states. If no action is taken, the world's slum population could rise to 1.4bn by 2020. Some states, the report notes, have already taken significant action to improve conditions, notably in Latin America where about 31% of urban people are classified as living in slums (figures for 2005) - down from 35% in 1990.
Such progress is welcomed as part of the UN's Millennium Development Goal of achieving a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers by 2020. Among the report's findings:
- Expectations of better access to education are unmet for most slum-dwellers; a 2003 study found that one in five children in the Nairobi slum of Kibera had no access to primary schools
- Poor sanitation, described as a "silent tsunami", means illness and death are rife; in one part of Harare, 1,300 people share one communal toilet with just six squatting holes
- In Cape Town's slums, children under the age of five are five times more likely to die than those living in the city's high-income districts
- Young adults living in slums are more likely to have a child, be married or head a household than their counterparts living in non-slum areas
"Rural poverty has long been the world's most common face of destitution but urban poverty can be just as intense, dehumanising and life-threatening," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in an introduction to the report.
Dr Tibaijuka told journalists that urbanisation in itself was not the problem as it drove both national output and rural development.
"History has shown that urbanisation cannot be reversed," she continued. "People move to the cities not because they will be better off but because they expect to be better off."
The only effective way to upgrade slums and prevent new ones emerging, she said, was to persuade governments to improve infrastructure. While help from international donors was required, she also argued that governments could take relatively cost-free action such as reforming property laws.
Comments